


Home Safe

by TeaCub90



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Coming Out, Epic Friendship, Fluff, Gen, Heart-to-Heart, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Male Friendship, Mistaken for Being in a Relationship, Morse just wants to be a good pal, Nobody hurts Max while Morse is around, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Season/Series 06, Protective Morse, Protective Thursday, Referenced violence, Thursday is doing his best, Vulnerable Max, physical affection, talking like grown-ups
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-09-29 13:49:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20437061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaCub90/pseuds/TeaCub90
Summary: It’s incredible how someone like the doctor, who gently scorned him for his necrophobia on their very first meeting, ended up becoming a person whom he respects, and likes, both for his intelligent witticisms and his compassionate care; whom he really rather enjoys verbally sparring with, when all’s said and done.It’s not martyrdom – he would have gone into that quarry for just about anybody, but DeBryn? That wasalwaysgoing to be a given.In the aftermath of the events at the quarry, Morse and DeBryn find themselves caught up in a misunderstanding that has the potential to lend uncertainties to their ever-growing friendship.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was one of the earliest inspirations for an Endeavour fic following the airing of Series 6 in the spring and I've been working on this for most of the summer. It's been thoroughly edited and checked but not beta-read; ergo, all mistakes are mine and honest feedback is appreciated. As per, I don't own Endeavour.

* * *

It takes Morse a few days, but he eventually manages to find the time to pay Doctor DeBryn a visit.

He arrives in the afternoon – the first afternoon off he’s managed to wrangle since this whole business with Jago, dead four days now and yet it somehow seems like longer, all Morse’s waking hours caught up in interviews and paperwork, pushing through the charges, getting the right information to the right people. Strange hadn’t so much ordered him to take a day off as simply threatened him, practically marching him to the door with the proclamation that Morse had done more than his fair share, go on matey, take some time to yourself, get some fresh air, go on.

And – well. Maybe this isn’t taking time to himself, per se. But Morse has been haunted, ever since that morning, not by the gunfire, or even the prospect of his own death – he’s had a few brushes with it now and at least this time he didn’t get shot – or even the shock of Jago alone, but rather that moment of revelation: poor DeBryn in the back of that van, shivering, bloodied and terrified, his clever mouth gagged. They had robbed him of his bowtie, Morse remembers noting in that moment, as the whole world seemed to hold its breath around him. They had taken the doctor as a hostage from his workspace, committed serious harm upon him and they had stolen his bowtie.

Writing down the charges has, frankly, never felt more satisfying. 

His previous visit to the doctor’s cottage, earlier that summer, was enough to teach him about the awkwardness of the driveway; although it expands to either side of the garden path, the thick, surrounding foliage makes for a tighter space and a bit too much of a blind spot into the road for Morse’s personal liking; clearly an acquired taste. It makes sense, he supposes, that a pathologist would want a bit of peace. With that in mind, he parks further down the road in a convenient, legal gap and because the shower that broke out on his leaving the house has abruptly ceased, he leaves his coat in the car, strolls up to the cottage, wine-bottle in hand.

The neighbourhood is almost eerily quiet, gravel crunching beneath his shoes, the sound echoing in his ears. Maybe it’s just the cooler weather but the place feels slightly silent, almost grey in a way it wasn’t in the summer, although the doctor’s car is in the drive. There’s no blinding sunshine today; just the lingering scent of a heavy afternoon shower.

When he knocks on the door, there’s a significant pause and then it’s opened briskly, almost abruptly; Morse is greeted with a less-than-cheerful expression that immediately eases when it sees him and another knife in hand.

‘You’ve shaved off your moustache,’ is the first thing DeBryn chooses to comment on and Morse chuffs at the greeting, still getting used to the lightness above his upper lip after a summer of gentle scratching.

‘Looks like. Seedcake?’ he gestures to the knife lightly with the bottle he’s holding. DeBryn glances down, lowers it; looks caught.

‘Ah, no. Not this time, I’m afraid.’ He smiles, a tight, pained thing and Morse nods, understanding immediately and feeling a sudden twist of guilt for not calling ahead. The pathologist was jumped in his own lab; the suddenness of an unexpected guest knocking on the door of his cottage would be enough to knock anybody off-kilter. Memories of endless, empty bottles cluttering around his feet and loud noises making him startle come to mind and he clears his throat, apologetic.

‘I can…go,’ he gestures lamely over his shoulder, not wanting to intrude. ‘Sorry – is – is this a bad time? I just wanted to drop this off…’ He gestures to the bottle – tried to choose a nice one, but deep down, he’s all too aware that not even the finest Chateauneuf-du-Pape will be enough to make amends for the fact that his investigations almost cost the man in front of him his very life.

DeBryn, however, merely blinks. ‘Oh! That’s kind of you. No, everything’s alright, I just… Come in,’ he cuts himself off, looking exasperated, more at himself than anything and Morse obediently follows him inside. There’s a certain shade within the house that wasn’t there last time, he realises, the rose-like red of the walls a darker hue; no smell of baked goods, no tweeting birds. Quiet. It’s to be expected, Morse supposes; the changing of the seasons. The day is light enough, but the nights are drawing in.

‘Cup of tea?’ DeBryn offers, leading him into the kitchen. ‘I was just thinking of making one.’

He picks up the kettle, raises his eyebrows invitingly. Morse nods, feeling slightly awkward, glancing around, reacquainting himself with the place from last time; his eyes fall on the rather strange, random sight of a washing-up bowl full of dripping apples on the sideboard and he frowns, glancing out through the windows into the back-garden.

‘I didn’t know you had an apple-tree.’

‘My sister,’ DeBryn sighs, over the rush of water from the tap. ‘She’s in the habit of sending me things like this and given what’s happened…well.’ He puts the kettle on the hob, turns on the gas; Morse notes the slight shake of his hands. ‘An apple a day, and all that. At least I’ll have something to throw at the next person who attempts to abduct me.’

Morse grimaces. ‘Are you alright?’ It’s just like the doctor, he thinks, to grab the bull so bluntly by the horns; perhaps sensing Morse’s own reluctance or inability to do so, not quite knowing if he should tiptoe around the subject, awaiting an invitation, or just avoid it at all costs.

The truth is, it feels strange to be talking about the sheer brutality of the quarry in the openness of DeBryn’s kitchen, with its shelves of spices and jars, necessary kitchen appliances and utensils all in their proper place, wooden cabinets and yellow curtains attached to the window that overlooks the sink matching the lemon shades of the walls and the fridge – which, Morse notices, has one or two children’s drawings taped to the front.

‘I’m alive, Morse,’ DeBryn leans back against the worktop; wasting no words, eyes piercing. ‘That’s more than can be said for many others, this past week.’

That’s true. Morse considers the reality of it all with a diving swallow; hours spent with the survivors of the Cranmer House collapse, while DeBryn himself tended so diligently and respectfully to the dead, spending hour after hour working through them while he, Strange, Thursday and Bright attended the living.

‘How are you recovering?’ he asks quietly because there’s no getting around this, what those brutes did to DeBryn. ‘How’s the head?’

‘Bit of a bugger,’ is the shrugged response, along with a rueful, tight sort of smile. ‘Glasses are in the process of getting fixed,’ he taps the ones he’s wearing, a plain spare pair, so unlike his owlish ones and throwing Morse off just a little to look at him. ‘Stitches came out the other day, so that’s something.’

Morse nods, tries to smile back, but there’s a lump in his throat he can’t quite shake as he continues to stare. His memories of those hazy months after the Coke-Norris case – and later, when he ended up in prison – well. The phantom feeling of something, or someone, creeping up behind you with bullets or a bludgeon, ready to strike, is difficult to shake off.

‘I’m sorry.’ He says the words, suddenly overflowing with them, into the steady space of DeBryn’s kitchen, the kettle bristling warmly on the hob. ‘I’m so sorry, Max. You should never have been mixed up in all that.’ He throws each syllable out like he’s throwing a hat into the ring, each one tumbling from his mouth from where they’ve been hovering on the edge of his tongue. ‘I promise you, I never…’

His throat tightens, clogging up all his words; he gestures almost blindly at DeBryn, DeBryn in his spare glasses and the slightest bags beneath his eyes, DeBryn wary and understandably so, hit with the very thing that Thursday cautioned him over: the incredibly high cost of his own investigations and how much higher they could have been.

Out of nowhere, a hand touches his arm and he flinches at the contact, anticipating it as some sort of prelude to pushing him away. But DeBryn stands close, much closer than he was a moment ago; even behind the unfamiliar glasses, there remains some of that piercing thoughtfulness that makes him as brilliant and precise as he is at his job. When he speaks, his voice is as soft as a trickling fountain.

‘You know Morse, I am first and foremost a doctor, not a detective,’ he tells him, holding his gaze with something closer to gentility than sternness. ‘But even in my chosen profession, I do myself the credit of being somewhat observant – especially when I’ve been working alongside you for about half-a-dozen years now. And I have often observed – to take a leaf out of your book – that you really are in the most dreadful habit of putting a great deal of pressure on yourself.’

Morse shrugs, a little helpless. ‘Max, they could have killed you.’

The doctor tilts his head to the side, a less-than-impressed twist to the mouth. ‘I know what those imbecilic philistines are capable of, Morse; you seem to be under the mistaken impression that you were the only one investigating this case.’

He raises a hand to gesture to his less-than-stellar state; when he speaks next, it’s more enduring, with the careful, almost-consultant tones of a GP, attempting to calm a hysterical, frightened patient. ‘Now, none of this was your fault. I realise you feel responsible, but you cannot control the actions of brutal men, Morse. There was a great deal to be done to bring them to justice and I was happy to offer my assistance, particularly after the atrocities they committed. What that poor fellow Binks suffered…’ He cuts himself off, looks away; when he speaks next, his tone is stony, sombre, his hand curling in on itself almost unconsciously.

‘They didn’t just kill him, Morse,’ he says in a low voice. ‘They_ tortured_ him. For their own amusement, one can only imagine. And I can only thank you for coming to my rescue before I suffered a similar fate. I can’t deny such a prospect had crossed my mind.’

Morse finds his chest tightening at the thought of it, spoken with a deep resignation that could only have come from hours in captivity with nothing else to think upon; that single, terrible possibility he’d steadfastly refused to dwell on the night he found the doctor’s cracked and abandoned glasses on the mortuary floor; an all-too-familiar find at many the scene of a murder. The knowledge that the doctor had been taken somewhere, clearly with force and against his will, that he could be suffering unimaginable cruelties at that exact moment, had goaded and pushed him on to complete the puzzle himself, waiting, heart in his mouth, for someone, anyone, to respond to his phone-calls, dialling numbers repeatedly, aware that every moment that went by was likely to be another terrifying moment for the doctor.

‘A rather late rescue,’ he gathers himself enough to mutter to the floor. ‘I knew they’d taken you to lure me out,’ he explains; wonders, not for the first time, if he shouldn’t have waited for first light. If he should have just blasted it all to hell; departed for the quarry directly. ‘I wanted to reach those I could trust; I worried if I went through the official channels, then they would kill you.’

‘Morse, if you’d shown up without any sort of backup – which you attempted to do anyway, _you abysmally foolish creature_ – then they would have shot you on sight,’ DeBryn’s voice is sharp, bitten; he grips the counter briefly. When he speaks next, his voice is forcibly calmer. ‘And I don’t think I would have been able to bear that.’

Honestly, Morse isn’t sure what to say to those words, so boldly proclaimed. Like just about everybody in Oxford, he managed to rub the doctor up the wrong way in the early days of their acquaintance, the pair of them softly sniping at one another over crime-scenes with only the barest heat while balancing a healthy, perhaps grudging respect for each other’s abilities that grew with time. It’s incredible how someone like the doctor, who gently scorned him for his necrophobia on their very first meeting, ended up becoming a person whom he respects, and _likes,_ both for his intelligent witticisms and his compassionate care; whom he really rather enjoys verbally sparring with, when all’s said and done.

It’s not martyrdom – he would have gone into that quarry for just about anybody, but DeBryn? That was _always _going to be a given. 

And that’s exactly what Jago and his crew were counting on, in the end, he thinks, with a quiet fury that twists his stomach, not for the first time, only keeping it at bay for so long through charge-sheets and handcuffs. He feels it now, like a sharp blade heating his blood; like the slash of the knife that first sent him to DeBryn for help, all those years ago.

‘I appreciate that – but this still shouldn’t have happened.’ Recognising the roughness in his own voice, he holds his hand out between them in some beleaguered attempt to calm himself; it doesn’t do much to help. ‘And I’m going to make sure that _nothing_ like this ever _does _happen, ever again.’

Every word is raw and every word is sincere, right down to his bones; his anger, his _frustration,_ that DeBryn was pulled into this – reduced to little more than a tool, a _hostage_ in this awful, awful thing that had already been scratching at him for weeks and weeks – suddenly threatening to boil over. It’s useless and counter-productive, he knows this; a rational part of him is muttering that the horse has already bolted, the worst has already happened, the criminals lined up and arrested, their hostage stiff and tired in front of him, recovering from his ordeal but alive.

And yet, he’ll stand a twenty-four-hour watch over the doctor if that’s what it takes.

He’s well-aware that DeBryn is – for once – completely lost for words; his mouth is open, seeking out something, anything to say, but his expression is quietly stricken.

‘Morse,’ he begins, with extreme care and abruptly, the kettle whistles, smoke streaming out of its spout; they both start at the noise before glancing at each other, the doctor giving a small, sheepish smile that Morse can’t help but return – even if it’s another sign of how understandably skittish he currently is. Clearing his throat, DeBryn goes to lift it off the hob and turn off the gas.

‘Would you please get out the milk, old chap?’ he asks with a very fixed sort of determination in his voice, returning them both to the normal domestic atmosphere of his kitchen, the quiet afternoon, away from the dark places to which their minds had drifted.

‘Of course.’ Morse nods, humouring him and frankly glad for the distraction, feeling strangely undone, exhausted even, by the conversation they’ve just had; opens the fridge – after briefly admiring the drawings on the front – to find the white bottle, handing it over to DeBryn.

‘Listen…’ he hovers, watching the doctor pour the milk into a ready jug, ‘do you…want to talk about it, at all? About what happened to you?’

‘Well, I made a statement at the time, of course…’ DeBryn reaches for the teapot, tone deliberately light. Morse rolls his eyes and comes to lean against the counter beside him.

‘I realise that,’ he watches those familiar hands work, gathering together cups and a bowl of sugar, keeping his tone gentle. ‘Just…if you…wanted a friend or – someone to discuss things with, well. I know what it’s like to be trapped, Max,’ he says it with a flicker of a click of a lock, footsteps down corridors, a month that felt like a concrete lifetime and something in the doctor seems to shift, re-register, glancing his way with recollection. ‘And…I’d be happy to listen. If you wanted.’

DeBryn abruptly halts, leans on the counter, staring out of the window. His face has always been one that’s been particularly difficult to read; Morse supposes that part of the trick of the trade of being a doctor is to conceal emotion, maintain a neutral mask. That doesn’t mean this particular medic hasn’t occasionally let his own mask slip; the quiet devastation that wrecked his voice during the Blythe Mount case still lingers at the back of Morse’s mind, the call for care for those already beyond his help.

‘I… appreciate the offer, Morse,’ he says, his tongue wetting his lip, perhaps unsure, perhaps simply anxious. ‘But perhaps you might… bear with me, so to speak, in that regard.’

‘Of course.’ Morse nods, lets it drop; makes himself useful by getting out some teaspoons from the cutlery drawer by his hip and picks up the tea-tray to spare DeBryn’s arms.

They don’t go out into the garden today, following the damp weather; instead, DeBryn leads him into the living room, just adjacent from the kitchen. Ever the detective, Morse puts the tray down on the coffee-table and takes in the surroundings, the television, a comfy sofa and armchair, a record-player rather like his own with a stack of records next to it – in the doctor’s case, there appears to be a fair few recordings of poetry among them, which makes him smile. There are also family photographs around the room – Morse notes one or two of a young girl with fair hair and a sweet smile in various stages of growth, clutching a small bouquet of daisies close to her chest in one frame, impishly posing with what looks like DeBryn’s fishing hat in another – and a few cards on the mantlepiece; Get Well cards.

Unable to quell his curiosity, glancing at DeBryn for permission, Morse goes to take a closer look; one of the cards has several signatures in it, the various good wishes of Cowley General who no doubt heard of the pathologist’s plight – Morse recognises, with a slight, guilty ache, Monica’s careful signature among the various names, accompanied by several kisses. There’s also one from Mr. Bright – a _Thankyou_ card, curious; and a truly beautiful, heartfelt, homemade one with floral drawings on the front, an abundance of green and pinks, carefully patterned in a creation of a garden scene. Written across the top in careful calligraphy are the words _For Uncle Max; _Morse’s eyes flicker towards the photograph of the young girl with the daisies again.

‘My niece,’ DeBryn explains, coming to stand beside him. ‘I’m something of a doting uncle. Of course, now I’m a thoroughly spoilt doting uncle, it seems,’ he points towards the card, something in his face undeniably fond, openly affectionate. ‘Though I admit, I spoil_ her_ terribly.’

Morse can’t help but smile. ‘I bet you do.’ It’s not hard to imagine the doctor as a family man, given how well he gets on with children and he wonders fleetingly about Joyce and the possibility of her becoming a mother one day. Even if the possibility of parenthood is looking increasingly unlikely for him – if recent experience could be taken as an indicator – he hopes that perhaps it won’t be so for her, if that’s what she wants. He imagines getting pictures of his own, from a niece or nephew he could put on his walls at his new house, if Gwen doesn’t prove too averse to the idea of him playing a role in her grandchild’s life.

She probably would too, he thinks, with a slight sigh; finding fault with him as ever.

‘She’s a good artist,’ he compliments the card; DeBryn hums, appreciative. ‘Couldn’t you go and stay with them for a bit, your family? Get away from everything for a while.’

‘And allow myself to be run out of Oxford?’ Max asks quietly; voice dangerously even – suddenly, despite the wounds, the bags beneath those steely eyes, he’s never stood taller. ‘I think not. At least,’ he amends, ‘not until after the hearing. Tea?’

‘Yes, please. Oh, Mr. Bright sends his regards,’ Morse follows him back to the sofa. ‘He says he’s sorry for not coming around himself.’

DeBryn shakes his head as they settle. ‘I wasn’t expecting him to, poor fellow. Poor Mrs Bright,’ he sighs. ‘Lovely woman; always very decent to me, although I only ever met her once or twice. Very generous; _incredibly_ beautiful,’ he says it with the same kind of quiet awe in which he might admire a particular flower among his greenery.

Morse nods, solemn; feels a fresh kind of guilty for not knowing, for never _asking;_ his knowledge of Mr. Bright’s marriage gleaned solely from the proud, preening references the Chief Superintendent dropped into conversations over the years. Guiltier, still, that his round of phone-calls, his requests for assistance the other night, would have no doubt caused disturbance in the Bright household; for dragging Bright away from his ailing wife’s bedside.

‘You knew, I take it?’ he asks the question carefully, with a glance at the mantlepiece; patient-doctor confidentiality exists for a reason, after all. DeBryn huffs, scratches his temple.

‘Can’t do the poor woman much harm now, can it? Yes, I was aware, for all the good I was able to do. I must confess, though, I’m rather concerned for Mr. Bright. Bereavement is a dreadful shakeup to one’s daily existence. Tell me, Morse – how is he?’

‘Well, Thursday’s been looking out for him,’ Morse assures, ‘I think they had him over to stay the other night; Mrs Thursday seemed happy enough with it. Here, let me,’ he adds, taking hold of the teapot; DeBryn relinquishes it with a grateful smile. ‘I’m glad he confided in you. You’ve always been good at helping, Max. Sorry – do you take sugar?’

‘Yes, please, two lumps. And it’s kind of you to say, old fellow,’ DeBryn shifts a little, lowering his gaze, self-conscious as he often is when someone praises him for his abilities with the living. ‘One can only try in the end and sometimes in vain. But that’s between you and me, alright?’ he adds, suddenly warning; Morse nods, giving him a reassuring look along with a full mug of tea.

‘Not my place to say anything,’ he declares, lightly, ‘and it’s probably not my place to say this either, but – thankyou. For looking out for him. I’m just – I’m glad he had you there.’

DeBryn, he considers, has been constant for all of them throughout the summer, after all – a pillar of safety to lean on; something separate from the toxic climate that Thames Valley had become. Irremovable, both from his position in the mortuary and in his convictions; when faced with Box and Jago, he refused to sway, or to cower, his sharp tongue a welcome constant against their lazy jibes.

‘Is it alright?’ he asks, slightly apprehensive as he watches DeBryn take a deep sip from his cup. He’s got better at making tea and coffee for other people, mostly for Thursday and Strange, but making it in a domestic capacity for DeBryn seems to be a little different; as though in his home, there’s a barrier to climb, some sort of test to pass. DeBryn nods, reassuringly.

‘Just what the detective arrested,’ he lifts his cup and Morse chuckles; picking up his own which they clink together. ‘Cheers. Now, how are you?’

Morse swallows, not quite expecting that and yet not really all that surprised. ‘Me?’

‘Yes, Morse,’ DeBryn parrots softly, but not unkindly, ‘with all your strange determination _not _to care for oneself, you.’

Morse blinks, parses that. _How_ is he, really? It’s hard to determine, between mounds of paperwork and lack of sleep, but he knows DeBryn – who’s seen him pass out over bodies, who’s patched him up any of a dozen times over the years – simply won’t be satisfied with that.

‘Lighter,’ he says, finally, realising the truth of it even as he says it; DeBryn nods, listening closely and something about that, about the focused, attentive expression on his face, encourages Morse to continue. ‘Now that George’s murder has been put to rest… _Definitely_ lighter, I think. Easier still that I don’t have to put up with the snipes of Jago and Box anymore.’ He shakes his head at himself, startled at how time and experience has hardened him; wondering if DeBryn can even stand to hear Jago’s name uttered under his roof after what he was put through at the hands of his heavies. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t say that. Box helped us.’

‘And I’m _extremely _glad that he did,’ DeBryn comments, eyes fixed firmly on his cup, tone quietly forceful. Morse raises his eyebrows, the best concession he can give. ‘Any news, in that regard?’

Morse pauses; bites his lip. ‘He… left hospital last night – discharged himself, apparently. No-one knows where he’s gone.’ _And I’m not sure I really care,_ is what he thinks about adding, cuts himself off. It’s difficult – he owes the man his life, he realises that much, but it feels like thin tarp over a whole pit of offences; not strong enough to hold a person up on its own. A good coat worn by a tramp on the corner, hiding cheap, stolen goods.

‘Hm,’ DeBryn murmurs wonderingly, musing over his tea. ‘Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me. Impeccably idiotic, of course, after sustaining a wound like that, but still…’ He clears his throat softly. ‘Presumably… Inspector Thursday will be speaking up for him?’

‘He’ll try and mitigate the damage as best he can; he and I wouldn’t be standing here if it wasn’t for him. I suppose I just…I can’t shake the feeling that his actions came as a result of his bond with Thursday, more than anything else.’ Morse shrugs, trying not to feel resentful, takes a large sip of tea, aware of the doctor’s eyes still on him. ‘Small mercies, I suppose. If anyone can get through to a man…’

‘How are things between the two of you?’ DeBryn asks the question almost out of nowhere and yet it’s said with obvious, considering care; a question, in fact, that no-one else has put to him. Strange seems to have taken it all at face-value and Bright is, understandably, occupied. Morse feels his mouth twitch, despite himself, thinking of the subtle cheer that crept into DeBryn’s tone whenever he and Thursday walked into the mortuary this summer, side-by-side, as if nothing could please him more to see them together after the cool uncertainty in the months following George Fancy’s death. 

‘I don’t know, really,’ he admits, comfortably enough; it’s odd, perhaps, but it doesn’t feel like much of a crisis. ‘We haven’t had much time to talk, what with everything else. It’s Mrs Thursday and Bright that need his attention right now, not me. We’ll get around to it, eventually,’ he says, for his own benefit as much as DeBryn’s.

‘See that you do,’ the doctor chides lightly over his tea and Morse smirks. 

‘It’s you we should be focusing on, now,’ he tells him. ‘Just get yourself better and that’ll be enough for me.’ Enough to know that they all got through in one piece; enough that they didn’t show up too late, again, to find another body of one of their own on the floor. Enough to know that DeBryn _survived,_ and will keep on surviving, despite his ordeal.

DeBryn lowers his tea, giving him a long, considering look. ‘Hypocritical, perhaps, coming from you, but I’ll accept that sentiment in the spirit it was given. Cheers.’

‘Cheers.’ Morse raises his own mug and they clink them together. Feeling a weight shift off his shoulders that he’s barely been able to acknowledge over the past four days, Morse drinks deeply before glancing towards the window, his attention caught. During his and DeBryn’s chat, the clouds have shifted, the grey day outside has brightened into something warmer, sweeter, a sudden dash of golden sunlight making itself known, spilling hopefully over the grass outside the door.

‘Ah,’ DeBryn follows his gaze. _‘Healthy, free, the world before me.’_

_‘The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose,’_ Morse chimes in, just to see the look on his face. It makes sense that the bookshelf behind them, absolutely stacked with poetry volumes of various title and renown, would carry a Walt Whitman or two.

‘And how lucky I am to still be able to choose it,’ Max murmurs, before standing with his mug, looking rather decisive. ‘Shall we have an amble?’

Morse nods, feeling rather buoyed by the notion and gets up to follow with his own mug in hand. ‘Yes, please.’

Together they wander out through the back door of the house, into the green and pleasant land of Max’s garden. The stone is damp from sporadic spots of rain; the table and chairs are looking neglected, as though no-one’s sat on them for a few days. When they step onto the soil, it’s slightly spongy; Morse breathes it in, the fresh plainness of showered soil, cooling and refreshing after such a heatwave of a summer.

They’re quiet for a moment, sharing the air, the pod-like privacy of it and then, finally, in his own, blunt manner, DeBryn starts to talk.

‘They used a club of some sort,’ he murmurs; Morse nods, stays quiet, simply listens, understanding the doctor’s need to unburden himself in a safe place. ‘Came out of the darkness, quite literally, while I was on the phone to you.’ Morse nods; he remembers that bit, the terrible clattering at the end of the line, no response, the only clue the silence, the click of the terminated call.

‘It’s hazy for a while, after that,’ DeBryn continues, ‘well, I was unconscious, of course – and then I woke up in the back of the van.’ He closes his arms around himself; Morse wonders if he even knows if he’s doing it.

‘What did they do?’ he makes himself ask gently. ‘Did they…talk to you at all, once you’d woken up? Did they know you had?’ he backtracks, makes himself still, not wanting to push too much; everyone always seemed to want to know what prison was like, how he fared inside, the soft-handed, intelligent detective-constable in among the criminals. He won’t do that here; not to DeBryn.

‘Once,’ DeBryn murmurs, voice soft as a duvet, teeth ghosting over his bottom lip. ‘They – they took the back of the van down to have a good look at me, just for a moment, but I didn’t recognise them, or see much of anything; all I could hear were their voices. Laughing at me – the things they were planning, what they were…intending to do.’ He puts a hand delicately to his temple and Morse winces sympathetically; can only imagine how DeBryn must have felt, waking in a haze of agony with the world swimming around him, half-blind and helpless. ‘I kept slipping, you see, in and out of consciousness. Jago made himself known to me not long after daybreak; wanted me to see him properly, I suppose.’ His mouth twists. ‘That’s the wonderful thing about summer. The sun comes up a lot quicker. Foolish, perhaps, but the light of daybreak does tend to give one a little bit of hope.’

Morse swallows; he can imagine it all. DeBryn is being deliberately blasé and incredibly brave in his retelling, but he can only guess at the quiet terror of the situation, the uncertainty. The wondering if anybody was going to come. ‘That’s not foolish at all, Max.’

A pained sort of grimace passes over the doctor’s face; his thumbs rubbing at his forearms in some semblance of self-defence.

‘I’m not a man particularly given to mawkishness, Morse,’ he murmurs, ‘But I confess there were times during the night when I was quite certain that I wouldn’t see my family again. That I wouldn’t make it back here.’

He glances around, at his cottage, his garden; his spot in the world, gaze hitting the ground, his arms still crossed around himself. Morse steps closer, hovers at his elbow, protective.

‘But you _are_ here,’ he assures, feeling the sheer gratitude of the fact alone and resolves to keep it that way. To keep DeBryn safe, come hell or high water. ‘I know that…when you’re first set free from somewhere, you want to feel it, you want to breathe it in and feel it in your bones, but… it’s not the same world. As if everything’s…somehow _delayed_ to your eyes and ears; your hands feel like clubs when you reach for the things you want to reach for the most. The world feels blurred. Like it shifted when you were away. At least,’ he coughs, glancing at DeBryn who’s watching him rather closely; DeBryn for whom the whole world must have seemed blurred that night, his glasses left behind like a sign, an invitation, or simply another form of torture. ‘That’s how _I _felt, when I got out of prison.’

DeBryn hums. ‘How did you deal with it?’ The question is quiet; his eyes are observant, his tone attentive. Morse folds his arms, remembering.

‘Gave myself time, I suppose. Let myself just…go with feeling blurred,’ he smiles a little, self-deprecating; his gaze grows sombre as he gazes around the garden, recalling, with such colour, the world of the upper-class and champagne he tried to sink into for a while, the bright motorcars, his budding friendship with Joss Bixby cut off at the roots. ‘But I suppose, the difference is, I had nothing to lose. You _have_ something, Max,’ he gestures to the garden, the house within carrying the constancy of family and friends, doggedly ignoring the slant of concern that falls over the doctor’s face at such a proclamation; what it suggests about himself. ‘Maybe your way of dealing with it will be better.’

‘Maybe,’ DeBryn echoes; his gaze lingers on Morse with something akin to worry, as though he wants to say more – after a moment, he clearly decides against it and focuses on the flowers instead. Together, they stand in silence for a while, clouds warring overhead with ever-determined sunshine; Morse watches DeBryn lift his face to it, eyes narrowed slightly, squinting slightly out of necessity, or in thought.

‘It’s getting cooler,’ he says eventually, in a much more conversational tone. ‘I’ll have to get weeding soon. Get a bonfire going.’

‘Well…If you need help with that…’ Morse offers, sensing the doctor’s need for distraction. ‘Probably a few things I need to burn, if you want to give it a ritualistic edge.’ DeBryn, he considers, is just about the only person he knows who would start a fire with good intentions; just to kill the weeds, the unwanted debris, rather than a crucial piece of proof that would weaken the way to finding a murderer.

The doctor smiles slightly and Morse follows him further onto the grass; despite the growing change in the season, his garden is still fulsome and floral, offering the kind of solitude that can be hard to find in a place like Oxford, unless one fancies a particularly deep walk in the woods – something, Morse finds, that he doesn’t personally have much time or inclination to do these days, given the likelihood that he’ll find a body somewhere, or else a tiger. He takes in the air on his face, glad of it after the seemingly-endless piles of paperwork in the office, four walls keeping him in while they made all the charges that they could stick against the surviving members of Jago’s gang, the kidnap of a respectable Home Office pathologist obviously high up on the list. Watching them fall apart beneath the weight of evidence had been hugely satisfying; watching them blame each other for their crimes, trying to strike bargains, had been nothing short of downright depressing.

_You took one of our own,_ he’d sat there, arms folded across the table, watching each one of them break. _You took our doctor and you still think you can get out of this in one piece? _

This, on the other hand: this feels like a cure. He hopes in the next few weeks, it will work to DeBryn’s advantage through fresh air and green fingers – that he’ll be able to bury his ordeal along with his autumn bulbs, and not in the bottom of a bottle. He leans against the small trunk of a tree in the garden, damp grass brushing his trouser-ends, listening to him outlining his plan for the autumn, gesturing to his greenery with the same hands that tell the stories of murder victims’ last moments; that gives them back their dignity.

‘I think I’d be lying,’ DeBryn concludes with honesty, as he takes one more sip of tea and then throws the last few dregs onto the grass, ‘if I said I didn’t need a project right now.’

‘Something to come home to and focus on?’ Morse approves, following suit with his own tea, gone cold save for the odd, distracted sip, his attention firmly fixed on the doctor alone. ‘Same with me. My new place is going to take some work.’

‘Your own shire, Morse,’ DeBryn reminds him, jovially, ‘if you want my advice, enjoy it. _Yonder, lightening other loads._ You’ve more than earned it.’

Morse smiles, touched. ‘Thanks. I don’t think I’ll be able to get it quite like _your _shire, though.’ He enjoys watching DeBryn visibly preen, even as he becomes aware of a slight, discomforting fullness in his bladder.

‘Sorry,’ he clears his throat as they cross back to the door, slightly embarrassed, ‘could I possibly use your bathroom before I go?’

‘Of course,’ DeBryn nods cheerfully, just as there is a heavy knock – one, two, three – at the front door. They both turn as the sound echoes through the house, reaching them out back, lending a startled silence over the peace of the garden.

‘Are you expecting someone?’ Morse asks softly, not missing the glimmer of discomfort that’s passed over DeBryn’s face at the sound, the way he’s stilled. The way he’s stepped just a little bit closer.

‘No,’ DeBryn glances at him, breathes out. ‘Probably just another well-wisher.’

‘Probably,’ Morse echoes as they both stare inwards towards the cottage. ‘Would you like me to get it?’

‘No. Thanks.’ DeBryn clenches and unclenches his fist and Morse thinks of the knife he took to the door last time; probably would have hesitated, the same as he is now, before grasping the first weapon that came to mind, something he was familiar with, that felt _right_ in his hand, that he knew how to use. ‘You sort yourself out; bathroom’s upstairs, first door on the right. Obviously, if I’m not back by midnight, call the police, and leave my wine collection alone.’

He meets Morse’s eyes, determined despite the downturn of his mouth. _I need to do this by myself. _Morse holds his gaze for a moment; finally concedes.

‘I’ll be just upstairs,’ he assures and goes, stopping to kick off his shoes just outside the door out of politeness, slightly soiled as they are from the lingering dampness of the garden. He keeps an eye on the doctor as he climbs the stairs; glancing down as the doctor looks up, he thinks he spots an audible swallow in the other man’s throat.

‘Go on,’ he orders; Morse chuffs and wanders on up, just out of sight, hearing the determination in his tone. DeBryn needs to pass his own test to feel comfortable in his home and this probably won’t even be the last time he has to do it for the next few days, a sad remnant of his hostage ordeal.

And yet it still doesn’t stop Morse from listening in from the nest of the upstairs floor, leaning over the banister while still out of sight, hearing the snick of the look, the slight creak of the door – only slight, DeBryn no doubt oils the hinges faithfully as part of his wider self-care for his home – holding his breath with a tightness that hurts.

‘Afternoon, Doctor,’ says a voice; gruff, gentle, unaccountably familiar. Morse immediately relaxes; it’s only Thursday and DeBryn’s response, surprised and pleased, of ‘Inspector!’ confirms that. Breathing out, feeling a tension leaving his shoulders and realising that right now it’s probably the same for the doctor down below, a shared, unspoken sense of adrenaline slowly decreasing, Morse leaves them to it for a moment, tiptoes into the bathroom behind him.

It’s small but cosy; a bath and shower, sunshine glowing through the discreetly-hazed windows and – Morse has to smile – a rubber duck on the windowsill, along with a bottle of bubble-bath. He squeezes it slightly as he washes his hands after the necessary ablutions, glances at himself in the mirror.

A man who is, frankly, a bit of a mess stares back at him; he’d hurried over here to see DeBryn and his favourite red sweater is rumpled, his hair slightly askew. The only difference is the absence of his moustache; had grown it out of some sense that he himself needed to grow up, the realisation of how he had treated George Fancy – carelessly, with some semblance of envy at his youth, his freshness, his fitting-in far better than Morse could have and ever did at that age – come too late. That, and Thursday’s demotion – now in the process of being reversed – a strong shake-up to his system.

Then, last night, he had looked at himself and seen something above his lip that_ really_ didn’t need to be there, had grabbed the razor, shaved it off like he was shaking off so many other things from the past few months. His skin itches a little, a side-effect of it, and it’s a little warm from the afternoon sun; a welcome warmth that’s seeped softly into his bones like liquid, that he wonders if he could only ever find in DeBryn’s garden. A true gift really, he considers with a smile, leaving the bathroom and wanders out to join the conversation downstairs. Or at least, that’s his intention until he actually reaches the stairs and hears Thursday’s voice floating up; contrite, humble.

‘…should’ve known.’ He sounds quite close, still; Morse can see the long line of his shadow in the hallway below. ‘I…I let you down and you’ve suffered gravely as a result. Jago’s bastards could’ve killed you and I’d spent night after night with him smoking and eating curry, and…I’m sorry, Doctor. I’m so sorry.’

There’s a heavy sigh that follows the words; Morse realises he’s gripping the banister hard. When DeBryn speaks, it’s deep and tired.

_‘Peace is come, and wars are over,’_ it’s said with an unmistakeable kindness that Morse finds himself relaxing to hear. Of course, he would bring Housman into it. Of course.

‘Well, uh…’ Thursday is clearly struggling to find the right words in response to that. ‘Yeah, I s’pose.’ Morse smirks a bit, undeniably fond; where he has the rest of the station beaten with opera, DeBryn has it with poetry. It’s an uncanny talent. ‘I, uh – I brought you this.’

‘Ooh,’ DeBryn is heard saying, ‘that’s a rather good year.’ The clink of a bottle; Morse rolls his eyes to the ceiling. They’ll turn the doctor into a raging alcoholic by the end of the month if they’re not careful.

‘Also some of Mrs Thursday’s cakes,’ is added hastily and Morse perks up; that’s more like it. He’s tasted them, they’re lovely. ‘She says something sweet’ll help. And the offer’s always open if you need a hot meal. Doesn’t make up for everything, I know, but…’

_‘Rest you charger, rust you bridle,’_ DeBryn rejoins smoothly, promptly silencing him. ‘It’s most kind of you, Inspector. Shall we?’

‘Oh. Yes, thankyou.’ There’s a surge of relief in Thursday’s voice as Morse hears them shuffling coats, moving away from the door and into the cottage. Promising, then.

Smiling, he considers his options; whether he should slip away and let them talk, air any grievances – has a feeling it’s needed on both sides – but for once, it doesn’t seem the right course of action. Certainly, it seems ill-mannered to simply disappear on him, especially after what he’s endured – and somehow, it makes more sense to just keep each other aware of their current whereabouts, at least for now.

For once, he decides, he’ll do this by the book. Go downstairs, say his goodbyes, and leave them to talk things through and so he shuffles downwards, stifling a yawn, left lethargic with the late burst of afternoon heat, the comforts of the cottage, shoeless feet making barely a sound and follows the sounds to the kitchen, feeling rather like a child who’s creeping downstairs to spy on adult conversations.

He finds them in the kitchen; Thursday has shed his coat but is holding onto his hat, currently being given a draft of whatever was in the bottle he brought over. There’s a familiar tin on the table, most likely containing Mrs Thursday’s baked goods.

‘Afternoon, sir,’ Morse stands in the doorway, leaning against the frame, sheepishly aware of his own intrusion onto the conversation, smiles apologetically as Thursday turns to look at him.

‘Morse. Afternoon. Sorry,’ he turns to address DeBryn, ‘I didn’t know you had company.’

DeBryn, for his part, shrugs, smiling as he replaces the bottle cap. ‘It’s quite alright. Getting bashed around the head is a bit of a common denominator for both myself and Morse now, and a rather sore one at that.’ He smirks at Morse, who can’t help but return it, before opening the tin. ‘Oh, lemon. How lovely. Would you like one, Morse? Considering I have no seedcake to feed you with today.’

‘I’m fine, thankyou,’ Morse assures, enjoying seeing the doctor’s enthusiasm. ‘Been telling Max he needs to look after himself,’ he adds to Thursday; the Inspector’s gaze is lingering on his, a certain startlement behind his eyes, before they suddenly narrow into something…not suspicious exactly, but…more regarding. Morse shrugs at him. _Yes, hello, what is it?_

When he gets no response, apart from the continued weight of the Inspector’s stare, he starts to feel slightly uncomfortable. Surely, he’s not wrong to come and visit DeBryn? He tries to think of some rule Bright might have passed in the last week, something forbidding outside fraternisation while they get this mess cleaned up, maybe; or just discouraging people from bothering DeBryn at home full-stop, something that would make this visit somehow questionable – but comes up with nothing.

‘You’ve shaved off your moustache,’ Thursday manages, appropriate of nothing; oh, right, yes. Of course, he hasn’t seen it yet; truth be told, neither of them has seen much of the other at all in the past two days, splitting off to sort out other things, other people. There’s a lot to catch up on.

‘I have, yes,’ he agrees with a quick smile, going along with it. ‘Thought it was time for a change. Again.’

‘You do rather look nicer without it,’ DeBryn pipes up unapologetically; Morse tilts his head past Thursday at him, trying and failing not to feel insulted. ‘You looked a bit…sharp, really.’

Morse scoffs, eyes flitting between him and Thursday. ‘Isn’t sharp what we’re supposed to be going for?’

‘Not to the point where I might have mistaken you for one of my scalpels, no,’ DeBryn smiles serenely at him and Morse chuckles, some part of him reassured that the doctor’s dry sense of humour is still very much in place after everything he’s been through.

Thursday, however, is looking between them, like a child who’s been pulled into a game of Piggy-in-the-Middle without being told the rules, the ball of conversation jumping over his head with no chance to catch up.

‘Am I… interrupting something?’ he asks, looking from Morse to aim the question directly at DeBryn. Morse spots open surprise flickering over the doctor’s face, wrinkling over his slight grin, perhaps at the question itself, or perhaps at the bluntness in which it’s asked.

‘Nothing in particular, Inspector,’ he answers, careful curiosity ebbing into his voice; perhaps a slight defensiveness, possibly born of the fact that Thursday had just narrowly avoided his unburdening himself to Morse. Morse tries to communicate reassurance to him with his eyes, that everything the doctor has told him will stay between them but then Thursday glances back at him, brow wrinkling, pupils shifting this way and that. Suddenly, Morse rather feels like some sort of suspect in a case – and yet when his governor speaks, it’s soft; hesitant. 

‘I…I don’t want to intrude, only – I was under the impression that…’ He swallows; drains his glass. ‘I should go.’

‘Sir?’ Morse starts forward, concerned at the brisk, suddenly frantic way that Thursday is moving around and seeing his surprise mirrored in the doctor’s face. ‘It’s fine, I only came down to say goodbye to Max. I’m off now.’ He points towards the door with his thumb. ‘If that’s alright with you, Max?’ he asks the pathologist lightly over Thursday’s shoulder, who gives a cheerful little bounce.

‘I’m certainly satisfied if you are, Morse.’

Thursday makes a sudden noise, like a cough in the back of his throat. It’s startling; Morse’s first thought is _oh no, not another bullet _and he steps a little closer, protective instincts rising.

‘Sir? Are you alright?’

‘Fine,’ Thursday throws a hand up; he’s staring straight at DeBryn now, who blinks back blithely, eyes slightly narrowed – right before they widen, something in his expression clearing.

‘Ah,’ he murmurs, shifting slightly on the spot without taking his eyes off Thursday. ‘I see.’

‘What?’ Morse looks between them; surely, after everything they’ve endured, there can’t be something he’s missed? Was he mistaken to perceive friendliness between the two men – is this going to be harder than he thought? ‘What is it?’

‘I think, Morse,’ DeBryn responds, his voice extremely calm and his eyes very guarded, ‘that Inspector Thursday is labouring under the false impression that I have managed _to turn your head.’_

He says it extremely meaningfully; stupidly, Morse reaches for the back of his scalp because his head, what…? – right before it hits him all at once with a glance at the Inspector: his coming down the stairs out of nowhere, brushing his hair back, shoeless and slightly rumpled, apparently at ease and at home in the doctor’s cottage – and immediately goes crimson.

‘Wh – no!’ he blurts out; DeBryn, for his part, raises his eyebrows, looking rather sympathetic. ‘No – no, nothing like that,’ he attempts to calm both himself and whatever suspicions are turning the cogs inside Thursday’s head because no, _absolutely_ not. ‘Nothing like that, sir, I promise you.’

It’s not, he acknowledges, somewhere beneath the shock, that he has cause to be afraid – he knows first-hand how far Thursday has always been willing to look the other way both before and after the legislation of 1967. _Worse things to punish people for, Morse,_ he had shrugged over a pint one day, following a case that had led to the reveal of the passionate love affair between two male students, both in their second year. They had been innocent of any murder or wrongdoing in the case itself, beyond a panicked and rather foolish cover-up just to protect themselves, afraid to admit they were each other’s alibi. Thursday had seen the truth in their fear, calming the slightly more hysterical one with a handkerchief, before letting them walk out of the station side-by-side and making a point of noting on the paperwork that one student had merely been hosting the other for an overnight study session.

_They’re old enough to know their minds, Morse,_ he had said, _old enough to do service and leave home and go off abroad or Uni or whatever it is that makes them happy. I’m not about to punish them for that._

Morse had agreed, remembering the determined silence his own father had felt on the matter, and they left it there. Now, in DeBryn’s cottage, he can see the same look on Thursday’s face that he saw that evening in the pub, two years ago; a slackening, an expression that’s full of anything but judgement, the experience of a man whose world education began at a very young age and while not always lawful, is always moral. Even through his embarrassment, Morse finds himself wondering if Sam’s been on the receiving end of that look in the past: _you can talk to me, I’ll listen to you._

‘It’s alright,’ Thursday is saying now, directly to him, voice softly grave, open and earnest and completely mistaken. ‘God knows, everybody’s been through the wars recently. If I’d known you were here, I’d have given you both some space.’

_Honestly._ Morse shakes his head, tugging at his ear. ‘It’s not like that,’ he tries to explain. ‘Sir. It really isn’t. I came around just as you did, to check on Max.’

‘It’s true, Inspector,’ DeBryn offers up, stepping smoothly into the conversation; Thursday is still looking thoroughly unconvinced, and even more so by Morse’s usage of his Christian name. ‘Morse was merely ensuring that I did not become a hermit following my ordeal.’ He gestures to his head, his wounds and Thursday refocuses, his gaze softening a little as he looks down at the doctor. ‘While, right now, the notion seems altogether rather tempting, I do have an office to return to and bodies to work on once I am cleared for duty. In the meantime, being dragged into the war of City Boys Vs. Complete Idiots has its perks.’

He indicates, as support, the gift of the bottle Morse brought him, beside Thursday’s own offering on the counter and finally, something in the Inspector seems to sag; he reaches out, grips the nearest chair, hunching over.

‘Bugger,’ he mutters under his breath, looking furious with himself. ‘You stupid, bloody fool.’ He covers his eyes for a moment, lingering bruises _just_ traceable on his knuckles; Morse swallows and steps closer.

‘It’s alright, sir,’ he offers up meekly, placing a very wary hand on his superior’s shoulder; he can feel the heat of the other man’s self-recrimination burning through, can feel the awkwardness in the room that his assumption has created and tries to make things right. ‘It’s a mistake anyone could have made, I’m sure.’

He chances a glance at a watchful DeBryn, who simply, silently holds his gaze for a split-second, confirming a slight suspicion that Morse has held for a long time. Not that it’s any of his business, of course and besides, that’s not even the _point._

‘I should go,’ his voice sounds too loud in the tense silence of the kitchen, a feeling utterly misplaced to DeBryn’s cottage, ‘You stay, sir and have a chat. That’s assuming you feel up to it, Doctor?’ he adds, as politely as he can manage; it’s Max’s cottage and Max’s call, after all.

‘Yes, of course,’ DeBryn’s tone is as careful as the smile he offers. ‘Shall I see you later, Morse? Or should that be darling?’ he adds after a beat; Morse can’t help an embarrassed laugh as Thursday grunts, feeling himself flush all over again at this whole thing, a rather random occurrence on what might have been an unremarkable day, had he not chosen to come over here. But then so many random things have been happening recently, good and bad. What’s one more?

‘I’ll just, erm…’ he gestures lamely with a glance at Thursday, who looks utterly resigned to the whole thing now and either just wants to get on with it, or simply sink through the floor. Best to give him the former option, given everything else and he feels two sets of eyes on him as he hurries to scoop his shoes up from outside the back door. It doesn’t serve to help his cause any – in fact, he feels absurdly like Monica scuttling sleepily from his old flat into hers to get ready for a shift, or Carol hurrying from his room at Strange’s, hair and makeup askew.

‘Sir. Doctor,’ he nods; doesn’t _quite_ flee to the front door, but it feels close. While he’s shoving his feet back into his shoes, he hears a murmur from the other room and then DeBryn appears in the hallway. Morse gives him a smile that he hopes looks polite enough; genuine.

‘Morse?’

‘Thankyou for your hospitality,’ he responds, far too formal and aware of it; lowering his voice, he glances back towards the kitchen. ‘Are you – are you going to be alright?’

‘Of course,’ DeBryn’s eyes linger on his face; he looks guarded, all over again and Morse feels a deep frustration on seeing it – at Thursday’s timing, well-meant as it was, and the new doubt and discomfort he’s clearly been left with. ‘Look, Morse – ’

‘It’s alright,’ Morse assures, hoping it’ll be enough and not wanting the other man to feel as though he needs to _explain._ ‘Honestly, it’s – don’t worry, it’s fine. It’s _alright,_ Max,’ he adds, raising his eyebrows, belatedly remembering to offer his hand to shake. ‘Just…just take care of yourself. Alright?’

DeBryn looks uncertain; then he nods once, takes Morse’s hand with the briefest smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

‘Morse,’ is all he says in response, although it sounds like something else entirely. He silently opens the door for him and Morse hurries away down the driveway; glancing back as the door shuts behind him, he closes his eyes with a grimace and grips the back of his head all the way down the road to the car.

_Dammit._

*


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After a delay of over a month, mostly down to RL and several rewrites, here we are again. Warnings for this chapter include references to period-typical homophobia and discriminatory language, mentions of brutality and violence and a reference towards the Holocaust.

* * *

He’s back at the station the next morning and as soon as he’s able to find a moment amid all the hustle and bustle of a station free from the corruptive influences of Jago and Box, he manages to catch up with Thursday in his office, knocking politely on the door left ajar. Thursday is parsing his pipe at his desk, an ever-reassuring sight of smoke rising from the way he puffs, almost absent-mindedly.

Morse has missed it, really.

‘Can I come in?’ he asks, standing in the doorway.

‘Course,’ Thursday murmurs, his tone indicating that he knows why exactly Morse is here and with a cheerful beckoning of a hand, watches him slip inside, shutting the door quietly. ‘Everything alright?’

Morse nods and finds he means it. ‘Yes. Thankyou. Just been busy, making arrangements for the house.’ He can’t hide his own, slight excitement at the prospect, which hasn’t faded even after his conversation with DeBryn; after years in spaces not large enough to swing a cat into, and then sharing, the concept of his own space, where he can play his opera without complaint, is utterly tantalising.

And then, because Thursday clearly isn’t going to bring it up and it’s really no secret why he’s really come here, he asks evenly, ‘How did the chat with Doctor DeBryn go?’

Thursday removes his pipe, nods, eyes fixed on his face. ‘Yeah. Good, actually, ta. Seems to have forgiven me my role in all this mess.’ He glances out of the window of his office; Morse follows his gaze, looking out at a station that seems clear of some kind of cloud, that feels clean and unpolluted after months of keeping his head down and trying not to breathe in the toxicity of those around him.

‘I’m sorry,’ Thursday adds then, quiet but contrite; Morse looks back to him, adopting a reassuring expression of innocence. ‘Not just for everything else, but - for the…misunderstanding, it was none of my business anyway. Shouldn’t go around making assumptions like that about people. We’ve had too much of that recently.’

It’s said with a lowered tone and a glance at the already-closed door; resigning himself to the fact that this is a conversation they should probably have and sooner rather than later, Morse pulls out the chair on the other side and drops down into it.

‘It’s fine, sir,’ he shrugs, as he settles, clasping his hands in his lap. ‘Really. Neither of us were offended; _I_ certainly wasn’t.’

Thursday chuffs. ‘No fool like an old fool. Can’t seem to stop getting it wrong at the moment. And I’ve put the doctor in an awkward position, to boot –’

‘No,’ Morse puts a hand down on the desk between them. ‘I’m sure that’s not the case. It’s just that… when we make one mistake, everything that comes immediately after just seems like one. At least,’ he shuffles a little, ‘that’s been my experience. Truly, though, sir – there’s really no need to persecute yourself over a simple misunderstanding like that. Like you’ve said, there are far worse things to be accused of.’

They exchange a glance, the memory of a bullet and a prison-cell rattling down the intervening years. Coughing, breathing out smoke, Thursday leans forward on the desk.

‘You called him _Max,_’ he comments, curious and Morse can’t help a smirk.

‘That’s his name. Sir,’ he adds belatedly; gets a raised eyebrow for his trouble that simply proves the point. He sighs, scratching the back of his head; how can he explain this? The neutrality of Doctor DeBryn – Max’s – status to all of them, outside their own chain of command – Bright and Thursday above him and Strange, always a frustrating step or two up – the ease it creates for him somehow, coupled with the odd, exchanged smile at the sardonic, dry sense of humour they share, that always opens a door for him among the simpler tastes of the rest of the constabulary?

Of course, if he says any of that, he’ll sound exactly like the snob he’s all-too-often accused of being. Nor does he want to add to Thursday’s obviously lingering guilt by reiterating the fact of Max’s secure, steadfast attitude over the last few months. It’s a difficult one to describe, even to himself – too far displaced from the escapism of DeBryn’s cosy cottage, his beautiful garden, shared with him of an afternoon.

And really, if Morse is brutally honest, it’s DeBryn’s sharp eye and tongue that kept him sane throughout the summer – the fact that he was seeing the same reality, and not only disagreed with it, but made his opinion abundantly and unapologetically clear about it; halted the belief that Morse was wading through an endless, endlessly _bad_ dream.

In that sense, the doctor did something remarkable: he gave him hope.

‘I s’pose, I thought…haven’t really been keeping tabs,’ Thursday is saying carefully, utterly unaware of his brain ticking over the possibilities. ‘Not…outside work anyway. Hadn’t been for a drink in a long time, like you said. Wondered if I’d lost track of what was going on in your life. Lost track of you.’

‘You knew I’d asked out the vet’s daughter,’ Morse folds his arms, incredulous.

‘Yeah, alright, and look how that turned out,’ Thursday argues, and Morse raises his eyebrows, conceding; he’s got a point there, maybe. ‘Thought, maybe, you’d…started looking closer to home. And DeBryn, he’s – he’s a good sort,’ he shrugs, almost as if he wants this to be a reality somehow. As though he actually wants Morse to clock off work tonight and head directly to the doctor’s cottage for the evening. ‘Been there for you the last few months.’ It’s not so much a statement as testing the waters and Morse shrugs, folds his arms in confirmation.

‘He has,’ he agrees carefully, hoping to avoid offence; Thursday shrugs.

‘Well – you seemed…_closer,_ than before, working together a lot. Gave Ronnie and Jago a fair runaround,’ he adds with a raised eyebrow; Morse feels the corner of his mouth twitch, just as it often does in response to anyone of a dozen putdowns of the doctor’s. His favourite, by far, is still the incensed list of sharp weapons up at Cresswell’s Factory, his voice raised tight with ricocheting irritation as he single-handedly wiped the smirks from the faces of those who dared to doubt his judgement. ‘Was like being at crime-scenes with bloody Laurel and Hardy, sometimes. And you know, you have…tastes in common, both well-educated for a start; rather birds of a feather compared to the rest of us, I would’ve thought. Could do worse,’ he shrugs, rather innocently; Morse is about to interject, an incredulous laugh bubbling up his throat, a protest on his tongue that he appreciates Thursday’s attitude – for DeBryn, if not for himself, but _really_ – but then Thursday continues, a thoughtful expression slipping over his face. 

‘I remember…’ He raises his face a little, to catch the soft edge of the afternoon sun at the windows, squinting warmly, ‘the first summer after DeBryn began working with us. Long before your time. He came into the station one day to deliver a report on a body we’d fished out of the river. I was walking him back out when Sam came skidding in with my sandwiches – forgotten them that morning, in all the hurry,’ he smiles slightly, with a slight huff. ‘But he managed to trip himself right up and bang his head on the front desk, started bleeding.’

Morse winces; Thursday continues, ‘Poor sarge at the desk totally lost his head – blood everywhere, sandwiches getting crushed, couple of rough sleepers waiting to be booked – and DeBryn just got straight in there with his kit and patched him up in under five minutes.’

Morse smiles warmly, although it wars with feeling extremely bad for poor Sam. Idly, he wonders how he’s getting on in the army and makes a note to ask at some point; another thing they need to catch up on. ‘He would.’

‘Hm.’ Thursday lights his pipe afresh. ‘I watched him very closely while he did it. I’m not proud of it,’ he adds at the look on Morse’s face. ‘I didn’t know him very well back then. Iron stomach when it came to dead bodies like nothing I’d ever seen before; I didn’t know if he even knew how to deal with a live patient. But he just spent the whole time chatting to Sam, asking about his favourite films and before you know it, Sam’s laughing his head off even though he’s got blood everywhere and DeBryn’s got him reciting the lyrics from _20,000 Leagues Under the Sea_ while he’s getting the bandages on. Then once he’s done, he pulls a sixpence out of his pocket and tells Sam to buy himself a Cadbury bar or two, doctor’s orders. Knew as soon as he did that, we’d found ourselves a good ‘un.’

Morse nods slowly, digesting this little piece of information; a pleasant revelation. DeBryn is an exceedingly private person, reflected by his own modesty when it comes to his abilities with the living, so few and far between as they are. He hums, moved and just a little embarrassed at the very real possibility that Thursday is not so much reminiscing as he is drawing attention back to DeBryn’s many positive traits in some mismatched attempt at matchmaking. Perhaps this is how Joan and Sam have felt in the past when faced with conversations about matters of the heart (wonders how many boyfriends Joan might have had that prompted this conversation; except no, don’t think about that at all) and Thursday holds his gaze seriously, regarding. As though he doesn’t quite believe him; thinks that Morse is still holding something back. It’s fair enough; they’ve not been exactly honest with each other for weeks.

‘I only started going around to his very recently,’ he offers up finally. ‘For professional advice and, well. We _do_ get on, certainly; I have a great deal of respect for him, as a colleague and as a friend.’ And maybe it sounds like the sort of ridiculous statement one might read in those so-called celebrity magazines, but it’s all completely true: DeBryn – Max – _is_ his friend and one whom he’s sore at the prospect of losing.

Whom he almost _did_ lose, just this past week.

‘And we have become closer, I suppose, what with…everything that’s happened.’ He shrugs, just a little guilty, not wishing to sound accusing but the look on Thursday’s face offers agreement, even resignation. ‘Something has to be lovely.’ He recognises, more than ever, the truth in those words – the flowers of DeBryn’s garden a kind of cooling balm for lost lunchtimes at the pub, the snatches of dinner conversation at the Thursday household that seemed long-gone.

‘They took him as bait,’ Thursday recollects darkly, though he’s watching Morse with a certain type of wondering; Morse swallows, caught somewhere between the reluctance to dwell and downright embarrassment.

_‘Sir, they’ve taken him, they’ve taken Max –’ _

_‘What? Morse, slow down.’ The click of music in the background as it was switched off. ‘Where are you?’_

_‘The mortuary, there’s mud on the floor and blood as well. Max is gone; they’ve taken him, I heard it. Sir, I need help. Please.’_

‘Not for me,’ Morse reasons, ‘at least, not like that – for all of us. It was just bad luck he happened to be on the phone with me at the time, although I’m glad he was. I was…scared for him.’

He rubs his neck to admit it, jaw tight, remembering the momentary helplessness that gripped him after he found the doctor’s glasses, the rooting through paperwork, dialling numbers over and over with suddenly shaking hands. ‘Although… I suppose it was considered retaliation, as much as anything. He never took any of it lying down.’ He tightens his jaw at the thought; clears his throat, glancing Thursday’s way apologetically, again aware of how close he’s hovering to the line – Thursday, however, simply mutters in assent.

‘Certainly deserves a medal for getting through all that in one piece – bloody horrible nightmare for him.’ He stubs out the pipe. ‘He’s a pathologist, not a policeman – and you’re right. He should never have been dragged into it by those bastards and that’s on me. Spent half my nights hanging around with Jago, not seeing what was staring me in the face. I’m sorry,’ he meets Morse’s eyes and the words hang between them for a moment, heavy with their own sincerity, a clock finally chiming again and even though they’ve already fought their battle, and won it, it’s still nice to hear. ‘For that and – for not being there. I’m glad someone was. Even if I had my own head in the sand, I’m glad the rest of you didn’t.’

Morse shrugs. ‘You had your reasons.’

‘Easy to say that now, when it’s all over,’ Thursday sighs. ‘But well done on covering your back.’ A beat of silence and then he adds quietly, ‘Remember your first post-mortem with DeBryn, when you slumped over.’ It’s a statement, rather than a question.

‘Oh, I remember,’ Morse’s gaze hits the ceiling, embarrassment colouring his insides. It had taken him a long time to live that down – although it had come with a feeling of shame, considering the body and the circumstances. ‘I’m better now, though,’ he adds, almost defensively. ‘Though I know that Max – Doctor DeBryn – always relishes the opportunity.’ Immediately, he wants to roll his eyes at the ceiling at himself; nothing like merrily walking yourself back into an assumption right after spending several minutes dismantling it. It’s true though, all the same.

‘Is he going to be alright, do you think?’ Thursday asks, eyes squinted a little, thoughtful.

Morse can only shrug. ‘I can only hope so,’ is the best reply he can offer. ‘I mean – it’s not every day a Home Office pathologist gets abducted, and obviously that alone is a serious offence, but we’ll look after him.’

‘No,’ Thursday gives a slightly impatient wave of the pipe. ‘About…’

‘Oh – yes, I’m sure,’ Morse nods quickly, although he feels as though he’s rather overstepping the mark here, making presumptions on the doctor’s behalf - even as he considers the good fortune of the fact this misunderstanding occurred between himself and Thursday, rather than…anyone else. 

The longer Morse considers that, the colder he feels – but Jago is gone, he reminds himself, his corruption shattered, scattered to the winds. Jago is dead; Max is safe.

‘Probably a good thing,’ Thursday mutters, lounging in his chair with his pipe, watching him with the vaguest smile; when Morse glances up, distracted, he adds, ‘I wouldn’t really know who to give the shovel-talk to – you, or DeBryn.’

Morse can’t help it. He laughs.

*

It’s his own office door that’s knocked upon a few days later, not long after a return from the pub for a lunchtime pint with Thursday and he looks up to see DeBryn in the doorway, a reassuringly unrumpled sight – bright bowtie, regular glasses returned, cuts almost faded, expression warm.

‘Good afternoon.’

‘Hello,’ he jumps up with a smile to see him so hale and hearty, rounds the desk to shake his hand with an odd sort of relief. ‘I didn’t know you were back on-duty.’

‘In a matter of speaking,’ DeBryn shrugs, shifting his briefcase from one hand to the other, ‘I was called into the hospital today to fill out some necessary paperwork and, well. Good opportunity to return to the mortuary, I thought.’ He says it with a deliberate kind of flippancy and Morse nods, understanding; that would have been DeBryn’s first time back in there, since he was snatched away.

How must that have felt, he considers; stepping back into the familiarity of a place from which he was taken, knowing that the last time he walked through that door for a shift, it was with blissful ignorance of what was about to happen?

‘Are you alright?’ he asks quietly; DeBryn blinks and then he smiles, a gentle, appreciative thing.

‘I’m fine, old fellow, thankyou. How are you?’

‘I’m well, thankyou.’ Morse hovers, aware of a slight, shared formality; the possibility of an elephant in the room, albeit a very small, very polite one right out of a child’s cartoon, wrapping its trunk around his hand and tugging softly. _Ask him. Ask him._ ‘Is…everything else alright?’

‘Oh, yes,’ DeBryn seems to pick up on his mood, holding up the briefcase before heading for the desk, laying it down and clicking it open. ‘My substitute for the week – _not_ Kemp, thankfully, he’s been discouraged from filling in for me since the tiger business of ’67 – assured me the results had already been called through, but I’d rather you had a copy as well, for safety’s sake.’

He pulls a document out, handing it over to Morse with something of a flourish. ‘As promised, your muddy bootprints. Perhaps a little redundant now, given the rather rude manner in which we were interrupted that night, but it pays to be thorough. Merry Christmas, or what-have-you.’

His glasses flash in the late afternoon light; he stands steady as he hands the document over and Morse smirks, just a little. DeBryn is not a man given to violence, or aggression; not just because he’s a doctor, but because he’s _himself_ – and yet, he recognises the spirit, the hard-worn _spite,_ in which the document is offered: a quiet desire for justice, if not revenge. He’s entitled, after all, perhaps more than any of them, after what those bastards put him through.

‘I’ll make sure it gets added to the file,’ he assures DeBryn, hugging the document close to his chest. ‘Although rest assured, at this point, given their collective record it’s really looking rather bleak, for all of them. Particularly McGyffin,’ he adds, for DeBryn’s benefit as much as anything, recalling the way the sound of the sirens wiped the self-satisfied smirk from that boorish man’s face. He had sat, looking thoroughly shrunk, in the interview-room as they read him his rights.

‘How very sad,’ DeBryn comments silkily, though something behind his eyes is as hard as steel; no pity to spare, it seems and Morse can’t blame him.

‘How was your chat with Thursday?’ he asks after a slight pause, treading lightly; DeBryn nods, adjusts his glasses, which, Morse can’t deny, he’s glad to see back on the doctor’s face, in all their familiarity. He wonders if he picked them up on the way here; wonders if having them back somehow helps, somehow creates a window back to normality for him.

‘Very fruitful. I can’t blame him, Morse,’ he sighs and Morse nods, quietly relieved. ‘You work with somebody long enough…well. I get the sense he’s been feeling particularly emasculated of late. What with everything that happened to George… I think we can all thank our lucky stars that he came to his senses.’

He breaks off, looking thoughtful; Morse swallows, a lump in his throat at the mention of George. After Jago’s death, after they had rescued DeBryn and made the arrests, he had spent all night on the floor of his room at the section-house and let himself think about him, properly, for the first time in a year. The memory of his bright eyes and floppy hair – which once drove him to distracted irritation on a daily basis – felled by a bullet, his blood on Morse’s fingers. Had run those same fingers over his moustache, over and over again that night, until the spot above his upper lip almost bled with memory; of his last words to George that he’ll never be able to take back.

‘I know,’ he nods – because today is not the day for that, to lament over the things he can’t change – recognising this not so much as a lecture, but rather DeBryn simply being DeBryn, the way he carefully organises his thoughts into paragraphs and quotations and releases them out into the world. He’s just glad that his governor managed to find his own way back – can still _feel,_ at odd moments, that slight swell of relief that’s lingered from the moment that car pulled up beside him at the quarry and he saw who was driving; when it was revealed that DeBryn was alive.

‘Been a strange few months, for all of us,’ he murmurs, looking at the wall rather than DeBryn, just resisting the urge to add, in a tone of pseudo-bravado in an attempt to face the thing head-on: _And then on top of all of that, Thursday thought you and I were… _Instead – luckily or perhaps unluckily, perhaps even out of cowardice, he holds his tongue, waves the file around lamely.

‘Anyway, I’ll make sure Mr. Bright gets this. He’s....’ His tone peters off as he remembers exactly where the Chief Superintendent is right now: at the undertaker’s, having taken the afternoon off to make the final, necessary arrangements. DeBryn nods, clearly understanding with a glance at his face; smiles ruefully and shifts on the spot.

‘Yes, of course. Ah, Morse,’ his tone snags on something and Morse, putting the file on the desk, quickly turns, immediately attentive because this might be it, this might be the moment for the thing they’re both deliberately not talking about, the elephant with the trunk still wrapped around his wrist. ‘I was going to ask you – are you doing anything tomorrow night?’

Tomorrow’s Friday; Morse shakes his head, curious. ‘Nothing that can’t wait, why?’

‘Well, I realise you’ll be busy with the new house, of course,’ DeBryn looks and sounds as though he’s weighing up each word with care. ‘But I was wondering if you would care to join me for dinner at mine. Rest assured,’ he adds with a noticeable haste as Morse opens his mouth to respond, ‘that my intentions are entirely honourable, and might I add, strictly platonic.’

_Bull by the horns,_ Morse thinks again, not without fondness. Of course. But he can also sense what DeBryn_ isn’t_ saying; even in the relatively safe space of a Thames Valley office, walls have ears. He could have easily rung the results through over the phone, just as he was intending to do in the first place; just as he was attempting to do that night, right before he got taken.

There’s a reason the doctor came here, and it wasn’t to deliver a file.

‘Yes. I’d like that,’ he nods. ‘If you’re sure you’re up to it? I don’t want to cause you any trouble.’

‘My dear fellow, you’ve been causing me nothing but trouble since the moment you first passed out in my morgue,’ DeBryn declares blithely, perhaps borne of relief for Morse accepting his invitation – and _why,_ exactly, does everyone keep bringing that up? There is, however, a twinkle in his eye, a smile teasing the edges of his mouth. ‘But I’ll admit, all that business of having to catch you before you faint does make one rather fond after a while. As does the white knight treatment of late, I’ll be brutally honest.’

Morse chuckles, looking at his shoes. ‘I’m hardly what you’d call a knight of the realm.’

‘No, just of Oxford,’ DeBryn rejoins cheerfully, in something close to relief. ‘Come around for seven, if you please. Oh, and Morse – don’t, whatever you do, bring a bottle, my wine-collection has grown substantially in the last week. Not that I’m not grateful for the concern, but the world seems to be telling me to get thoroughly sloshed.’

‘If anyone’s earned the right, you have,’ Morse tells him fairly, opening the door for him. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow night.’

*

Morse doesn’t bring a bottle to the cottage the next evening, but he _does_ bring a box of Cadbury Roses; walks up the driveway beneath a clear, early autumn sky. It’s slightly chilly, but all the lights are on like a warming, welcoming beacon, much like DeBryn himself when he opens the door to greet him.

‘Oh, Morse!’ he exclaims at the gift of chocolate with obvious pleasure, turning the box over in his hands as he welcomes him in; he’s got his blue apron back on, and it’s a reassuring sight. ‘You really shouldn’t have.’ His smile as he inspects the box, however, is exceedingly jovial and Morse honestly can’t help but feel rather pleased with himself. ‘We’ll have some of those later. Thankyou, old fellow.’

‘Thought I couldn’t go too far wrong with it,’ Morse shrugs as he follows him into the hallway, filled with seasoned, rich aromas, allowing the doctor to take his coat. ‘Chocolate seems to be the best cure for these things.’ Judging by Joyce, at least, whom he sometimes brought small chocolate bars for on the sly, usually when Gwen wasn’t looking; just for the novelty of rebellion against his stepmother and just because he liked being able to make his sister’s face light up when he quietly pushed the bars across to her, but he doesn’t mention that. ‘How are you getting on?’

‘Well,’ DeBryn remarks, his eyes twinkling, soft in the lights of his house, ‘my culinary skills are up to scratch, so one might assume I’m doing quite well. Shepherd’s pie alright?’

They share the meal in the dining-area, a table and a few chairs just adjacent to the lounge, calm classical playing on the record-player in the background as company, accompanied by one or two of the different wines from the collection that’s now spilling over the wine-rack; DeBryn truly wasn’t exaggerating when he told Morse how much he had accumulated from friends and family.

‘Help me make a dent, there’s a good chap,’ he comments dryly, showing the clutter of bottles to Morse, including a couple of rather nice Cotes-de-Rhone with a note from the hospital still attached (which, Morse can’t deny, has him absolutely simmering with envy) ‘Kemp would have any excuse to put me out of a job.’

The shepherd’s pie is simple but filling fare, bursting with flavour and Morse is hard-put to remember the last time he had a proper, homecooked meal – or is, in fact, going to get one any time again soon, considering the present lack of gas and heat in his new lodgings. He doesn’t say this to DeBryn, but he has a feeling, judging by the way the doctor presses seconds on him, that he’s already guessed.

Despite a fear that Morse had been nursing, that Thursday’s assumption might have opened some kind of…chasm between them, it is in fact all quite comfortable. The impact of Thursday’s mistake isn’t gone; it’s still _there,_ like the flimsiest piece of paper between them, but it’s manageable and Morse strongly suspects that there’s a reason for the fact that DeBryn has yet to bring it up. Instead, they chat about other things; about Thames Valley and the new established chain of command, books they’ve been reading lately and about Morse’s new place; when DeBryn asks him about his plans for it, Morse pauses and then realises he truly doesn’t know.

‘I’m just…enjoying the space,’ he shrugs, after parsing the question for a moment, ‘I’ve never been much for home décor.’ He glances sheepishly around the room; the dim lounge with its many books, records, and smiling family-photographs. DeBryn does seem to favour the colour of red inside his cottage, he’s noticed and perhaps for a pathologist it’s a strange choice, but it puts Morse in mind of a richness, a satisfaction, like the sauce of a hearty stew. DeBryn doesn’t have a greedy life, but he has an indulgent, comfortable, comforting one: he’s created something satisfying with the space he has.

‘It’s just nice to have my own four walls again. The closest I’ve ever come to it, actually,’ he admits because this is a _house;_ this isn’t some section house, or a room in a B&B, or that cheap, ground-floor flat that was a port in a storm and an invitation for light-fingered thieves. This is _his._

‘Well, if you need any help decorating, I’d be happy to lend a hand,’ Max says bracingly, standing to clear; Morse immediately stands with him, lifting cutlery into his arms to carry into the kitchen, ‘I’m quite a dab hand with the paint brush. Just dump them by the sink, old chap, I’ll deal with them later. Apple crumble?’

Morse smirks. ‘Found some use for them, have you? Yes, please.’

After they’ve eaten their fill, Max pours them brandy, makes coffee and leads him into the lounge with the chocolates under one arm; they turn the lounge lights on, settle in for a chat, Morse taking the sofa and Max seating himself in the armchair.

‘You know, Morse,’ he comments, once he settles. ‘I’ve worked with you now for about six years, and if I may say so, you still manage to surprise me.’

‘How’s that?’ Morse, gathering that this is the moment when a very important conversation is looming, meets his gaze with ease, a finger circling the rim of his glass almost distractedly. Max purses his lips, looking rather thoughtful.

‘Well, your extreme gallantry during this…misunderstanding of Thursday’s,’ he says, sounding rather braced; falling back on the briskness of his profession to hide something deeper. ‘There’s not many men who would have reacted the way you have to an accusation like that.’

Morse shrugs, oddly offended and not even on his own behalf. ‘Hardly an accusation. Simple misunderstanding, surely? Somebody once mistook Ms Frazil to be my mother.’ He clears his throat, the memory of _that_ particular misconception – made by an acquaintance of the editor’s whom they had bumped into during a stroll through the city centre, exchanging thoughts on a body found near one of the theatres – having left its mark. DeBryn, for his part, raises a faintly horrified eyebrow. ‘Let’s just say they won’t be getting a Christmas card from her any time soon.’

‘Hardly surprising,’ the doctor offers. ‘The pair of you are never shy of running off looking for trouble. I would take it as a compliment, if anything, Morse – Ms. Frazil has nerves of steel.’

It’s said with a certain admiration; borne, perhaps, of the memory of patching Dorothea Frazil up at the hospital following her own kidnap ordeal the year before last. She had been shaken by her ordeal, but by absolutely no means quiet – had, in fact, been taking notes on the case once the shock had passed, making calls to the Mail in-between plasters and iodine being applied_,_ injured and highly indignant. Morse had been full of respect and exasperation both; remembers being full of much of the same that morning on the quarry, watching DeBryn fussing over his cracked glasses even as blood ran down his face. Morse idly wonders if he should offer to put the two of them in touch so that they can share their experiences with each other, what they’ve both been through, but he doesn’t want to distract away from the current conversation; doesn’t want to skirt around it for fear they may not come back to it later.

And yet, DeBryn seems to sense what he can’t say, and with the expression of a man who’s about to throw out a gauntlet, or else pick one up, he puts his brandy aside, leaning forwards in his chair.

‘Morse,’ his hands dance slowly around each other; his expression can only be described as cautious. ‘I’m curious… did you understand _why _Thursday made the assumption that he did? About us?’

Morse shrugs back over his brandy. ‘We spoke about it at some length. He believed that…’ He taps his fingers on his own glass, unsure how to say it, not wanting to betray his governor and not wanting to offend the doctor. ‘We just hadn’t…seen a lot of each other. Him and me, that is, not – not you and me. Working, I mean,’ he shrugs, oddly embarrassed. 

‘Well, yes,’ DeBryn agrees gamely. ‘And I’ve always welcomed your company, as I hope you realise. But, Morse,’ he wraps his hands together, eyes fixed on a point on the floor, gazing at the edge of the rug, his tongue slowly wetting his lower lip before he looks up, meeting Morse’s gaze full-on. ‘What I’m saying is,’ his eyes are a little wider behind his glasses, his voice just brushing the edge of the gentlest impatience. ‘You _understand_ why Thursday made that assumption.’

His voice is steady enough, eloquent enough, but there’s an undercurrent there of something else, a slight tremor that lowers the usual gaiety of his calm, fluting voice, even though there’s no-one in the house but them; old habits, perhaps. A second-skin secrecy.

It’s not a question. It’s a declaration.

‘Turn my head,’ Morse responds simply, because there’s no mistaking the moment, the _manner_, in which Thursday’s eyes swung away from him and settled on DeBryn alone, regarding him just as one might the eye of the storm and also simply because Max’s visible fretfulness, after everything else he’s been through, is too much to bear. ‘Yes?’ He raises his eyebrows, meaningful.

‘Yes,’ DeBryn echoes and it sounds like something else altogether; swallows audibly. ‘Rather… _optimistic_ of the Inspector, I thought.’ He chances a smile that’s nothing like one. ‘Nothing to do with you, you understand, it was merely a misinterpretation…’

‘Based upon his perception of you,’ Morse carefully finishes for him, touched by the doctor's truly unneccessary concern. ‘It’s alright, I understand. I _understand,_ Max,’ he tells him again, putting as much reassurance into the syllables as he can, schooling his features to be the same, ‘and it’s not something you need to explain, not to anyone and certainly not to me. It’s no-one’s business but yours and it doesn’t change my perception of you, or – alter anything, in any way. In case you were wondering.’

He holds DeBryn’s gaze, hoping it’s enough. He knows Thursday never meant for this to happen, never intended to put the pathologist in this position, would never want him to be_ afraid_ – but it pains him that the doctor felt he even needed to clarify it in the first place. He’s painfully aware of just how much the other man is risking in this moment – not with him, _never_ with him – just. Opening up the door on his private life, on something that, quite understandably, he wouldn’t want to share with many people, just for the sake of putting Morse well and truly in the picture. 

He watches DeBryn sit back in his chair, breathing in and out, gives him a moment to gather himself, his sturdy chest rising and falling with it.

‘I told myself not to worry with you,’ he murmurs, his voice very soft. ‘Well – you’re a good fellow, aren’t you? But – one can never be too careful, I find.’

He glances off to the side at the photographs of his family, biting his lower lip, the edges of his face coloured and layered by the lounge lamps and Morse considers the reality of it, the necessity of keeping secrets; the reality of a society that human-beings have known, but no-one has dared to speak aloud, for fear of a lawful backlash.

‘Don’t worry,’ he presses now, hooking DeBryn’s attention back to him, away from things that neither of them are able to completely resolve. ‘Don’t _ever _worry with me. I consider you a friend, Max and after what you went through – listen, you don’t need to justify it, or explain anything, but I will say the same thing now that I said the other day; if you ever need help or – or if there’s anything, I mean, _anything,_ you ever need to discuss, a – a friendly ear, or – or _anything,_ then I’ll be there. I promise you, it won’t go any further and it won’t be repeated, to anyone. But I don’t _ever _want you to worry about it. You understand that?’

DeBryn blinks; his mouth isn’t exactly hanging open, but nor is it shut tight and perhaps, were it any other occasion – even a different time in their lives – Morse would have relished leaving the doctor speechless.

... But then the memory of him, gagged and unable to shout for help, comes back to his mind, never too far away, not even two weeks away from where they are right now and that’s nothing to be relished at all. Instead, he just sits quietly with him, recognising the sheer strain of having one of your deepest secrets on display – or at least spoken out loud. He tries to think of something to compare it with and yet – the suicidal contemplation he felt once upon a time, the result of half-a-dozen years under Gwen’s reluctant care, doesn’t seem to match up; sounds like an insult to DeBryn in his head alone. Besides, this isn’t even about him.

‘Do you want a top-up?’ he asks after a moment’s shared silence; gestures to the decanter. DeBryn nods and Morse takes charge, pouring a finger for the doctor and then for himself; has a feeling they both need it right now and watches as DeBryn murmurs his thanks, takes a noticeably shaken sip.

‘You alright?’ he presses gently, the question by now not an unfamiliar one between them. It makes him feel both frustrated, and more determined. ‘I know how…important that was, what you just told me. You didn’t have to,’ he comforts; Max simply sighs, reaching beneath the frames of his glasses to rub his eyes.

_‘Let God and man decree/Laws for themselves and not for me,’_ he recites, his tone dry and hoarse, deliberately defiant; yet Morse has known him long enough to recognise that he’s also falling back on Housman as a kind of safety-net, a way of getting himself back together. Not entirely convinced, nor swayed, he finds himself feeling the need to push just a little more. Just to ensure that DeBryn is completely safe.

_‘Has_ somebody…?’ He lets the question falter; realises he has to be more specific. ‘I mean - is there anyone who’s given you cause to be worried, lately?’ He finds himself braced, hand clenching a fist; if the doctor answers in the affirmative, he may well bring the roof down on somebody’s head.

DeBryn however, just shakes his head, smiling ruefully. ‘My role in the Home Office means I am in rather a secure position in that regard. Had circumstances been different, however… I don’t think men like Jago – or even Box, for that matter – would have needed much of an excuse. _And make me dance as they desire…’ _He taps his fingers on the arm of his chair to the rhythm of it, the quotation unfairly apt. ‘“Protecting the children,” you see,’ his mouth twists, as bitter as his tone and Morse is besieged by the memory of Dudley Jessop, bloodied and battered at the hands of those who call themselves Christians, _wrest their neighbour to their will._ ‘At least, that’s the official line.’

‘No.’ Morse is aware he sounds slightly impolite, but he doesn’t care. ‘No. None of us would _ever _let that happen to you – not me, not Bright, not Strange and definitely not Thursday. I _know_ you,’ he presses, staring straight into DeBryn’s face, ‘and I know you would never harm anyone. Certainly never a child.’ He glances back towards the photographs; recalls a cold, foggy morning at Blythe Mount three summers ago, a pair of stricken eyes staring up at him and a voice shaken by witness. ‘I’ve met people who hurt children, Max, and you are _nothing_ like them. I don’t understand the logic of that, why people think the way they do, but I do know how incredibly caring _you_ are.’

And yet Morse isn’t an idiot, and he knows DeBryn isn’t either; the law may have changed in the last few years, but he knows the reality of this world they live in, seen it first-hand with the beating of Dudley Jessop at the hands of people not too unlike the quarry workers who brutally stole Max away. _How can love be dirty,_ Jessop had asked him, eyes beseeching and lost in a society that didn’t care to look a little closer and Morse hadn’t known what to say – a dozen years of reluctant Quakerism leaving him ill-equipped to answer such questions.

(He had even found himself wondering, just for a moment, how his mother might have responded).

There have been many stories, first in the army and then in the police – the sad tale of Joy Pettybon’s husband just one of many a man convicted in such a blunt manner, accused of difference, of _otherness,_ providing fuel for her slander, masking the trials of her marriage with the unrelenting talk of brimstone, of _sodomites_ – of what people with such preferences have been forced to endure. He’s met suspects and witnesses with things to hide, unable to admit who exactly they were with the night before. He’s read all about the case of Oscar Wilde, the slander of what he was that put him inside Reading Gaol, treating his talent, his love, as criminality; as something worse than cold-blooded murder. He knows about Germany and Section 175.

_With jail and gallows and hellfire… _

‘If anyone,’ he leans forward in his chair, ‘anyone, ever tries to – to get to you, or to hurt you, you come _straight_ to me. I appreciate your confidence in me, Max, and you have my word; it will _never_ be ill-placed. All I ask is that you tell me immediately if _anyone_ gives you any cause to feel unsafe.’

Maybe a couple of issues are welding themselves together there; true, he’s worried about what’s going through DeBryn’s head right now, on the heel of everything else, but more than that, he still remembers the mingling relief and terror of that moment when one of McGyffin’s heavies took down the back of that van to reveal the not-so-secret ace up Jago’s sleeve: DeBryn’s battered face, ripped clothes and an expression warring between fear, ferocity and red-eyed exhaustion.

So if he’s feeling overprotective right now, despite the assurance of changing times and the legislation of 1967, well. Sod it, to put it in layman’s terms. Absolutely_ sod_ it. He’ll shield DeBryn, for better, or for worse, with everything he’s got.

DeBryn, for his part, swallows at what must have seemed, to him to be a rather passionate outburst; he looks rather as though he’s walked into a wall – or else avoided a very narrow and nasty collision with one. When he speaks, his voice is as dazed as his eyes. ‘Good heavens, Morse. Carry on like that and I might take complete leave of my senses and propose.’

Morse blinks and then laughs, cheeks growing warm, appreciative of such a sudden, unexpected compliment. ‘If you like,’ he shrugs, smiling, even as he acknowledges the ungracious thought of how nice it would be for him to be on the receiving end of a marriage request for once; to be wanted enough by someone to be asked to stay. DeBryn chuckles, glancing down at his drink, looking, just for a second, uncharacteristically bashful.

_‘Perhaps, young man, perhaps,’_ he counters in the same, ironic vein. ‘But, truly Morse – I appreciate your attitude. It’s remarkably generous of you to say such things.’ He’s attempting to shield himself with the mask of the medical professional and not quite managing it – but then not even DeBryn, with his sharp tongue and strong stomach can always hide behind the neutral façade of the pathologist. The fact that he doesn’t – that he allows flashes of himself through, of compassion, of concern, of _gentleness_ – is one of the little things that Morse realised a long time ago that he rather liked about him.

‘Surely the kind of thing that any decent person would say to a friend,’ he argues, straightening up in his seat. ‘I’m really glad you were able to confide in me, but, really, Max – you really ought to be focusing on you, talking to your family, not concerning yourself with me just because Thursday thought you were, uh…’

Max smirks dryly. ‘Corrupting you?’

Morse levels his gaze. ‘I was _going_ to say _courting.’_ It feels strange to say it out loud, to voice the assumption for what it actually was and maybe it sounds a little ridiculous, but it also sounds – well. Nice, in a detached sort of way. After everything the last year has put them through, the set-ups and corruptions that became part of life at Thames Valley, to simply be mistaken for Max DeBryn’s lover – well. How could that _ever_ be any sort of insult?

‘With seedcake?’ DeBryn quips; he sounds noticeably lighter and Morse laughs, appreciative.

‘It was very tasty,’ he commends; is rewarded with a smile and really, he thinks – rather this, than a corrupt detective. Rather the warmth of a garden and iced tea, than dirty money handed over the table, drug powder scattered over a pool-table next to George Fancy’s dead body.

‘Well,’ DeBryn clears his throat. ‘I suppose I was… concerned. That perhaps you might think that I’d… given the Inspector some prior cause to make that assumption. Rest assured I haven’t,’ he adds and Morse nods, believing him; the thought had never even occurred to him, ‘But I thought perhaps _you _might… believe your reputation could be at stake.’

Morse scoffs. ‘As if it’s never been before? The opera-loving know-it-all with a passion for crossword puzzles?’ It comes out more bitter than he intended, and he takes a sip of brandy to hide it; DeBryn blinks.

‘My dear fellow, it’s not –’

‘I know what it is,’ Morse interrupts dully. ‘Come on; it’s not as if you and I even got on when we first met. I know what people say about me behind my back – what they’ve always said, and I’m used to it, honestly. If people have more time to gossip than they have to do their jobs, that’s their problem, not mine.’

‘I don’t think anyone else has your impressive track record, Morse,’ DeBryn comments quietly. When he gets no response to that – Morse very determinedly sipping his drink, measuring out the flavour - he taps his hands together, perhaps remembering those early days starting with that first, reluctant handshake. ‘I suppose I thought you might…fear rumours that could prove damaging and I wondered if…you might want to keep your distance. For a time.’

‘I don’t,’ Morse shakes his head immediately at such an exceedingly unappealing notion. ‘Our work would suffer, for one thing and like I say, I _know_ you. You’ve always been completely decent and professional with me – unless you count that one time you used me as a model for hands-on strangulation.’ He raises his eyebrows, still feeling rather insulted to this day by that particular occurrence; DeBryn merely twinkles at him, unapologetic. 

‘I thought it would help,’ he replies primly, adopting an expression of supreme innocence and then after a beat, adds, more seriously, ‘and you seemed rather distracted at the time. I thought I might try something new, to bring you out of yourself.’

He smiles, rather candid; Morse scoffs, remembering that clouding period of uncertainty, each day like an uncertain foot in front of the other, throwing himself into his work to distract from all the _Everything_ with Joan – or rather, the lack of it. He’d gone around in a fog, he considers in hindsight, not really focusing on much, knocked sideways first by Joan leaving and then by the news of his exam and struggling to stay upright. Things had been difficult, there’s no getting around it and in the face of the doctor’s honesty, he can’t really be all that cross.

‘I suppose,’ he shrugs, not wanting to go into all of that now; what’s past is past. He’s moved on from old uncertainties to bolder ones. ‘Anyway, _apart_ from that,’ he huffs as DeBryn chuckles, just a little, ‘I _trust_ you, alright? I remember – when I was shot, years ago, and you arrived – I was frightened,’ he admits, says the word aloud, confident that he won’t be shamed for it and is rewarded by DeBryn’s nod and instantly-gentling gaze, ‘and Thursday was doing all he could to calm me down, but – when I saw you come in with your medical-kit, I knew it was all going to be alright.’

DeBryn tilts his head, both with memory and sympathy. ‘That was a difficult one. I think that was when I realised your devotion to the job wasn’t to be taken lightly, although it does exasperate me when you don’t care for yourself adequately.’

‘I know it does,’ Morse takes the light rebuke for what it is, because he wouldn’t expect anything else. ‘My point is, I feel safe with you. Although…’ He taps his thigh with his finger, unsure how to say it, to find the right words, but he has a feeling that if they don’t talk about it now, about _all_ of it, then he’ll still have questions later which, unanswered, might make things awkward later on down the line and he really, really doesn’t want that.

‘I don’t…I mean…_Do_ you…?’ He gestures between them lamely, feeling stupid even as he asks it, unsure even how to say it and fully expecting to be laughed at for such a bold, egocentric assumption; to his surprise, however, Max simply puts his head to the side, something behind his glasses considering.

‘Well,’ he murmurs, before he puts his brandy aside with what sounds like a rather decisive clunk and leans forward slowly, mouth set. ‘I can’t deny that I’ve become extremely _fond_ of you, Morse and all your various qualities, such as your drive and your determination to see justice done for the sake of those who wind up in my morgue, are to be highly admired. You’re a fine fellow in many respects – very brave, very kind and with a rather appealing fondness for things that go beyond the latest _Beano_ comic,’ he says that last part rather dryly and Morse can’t stop a shy grin. ‘All things considered, I do feel rather fortunate to be able to call you a friend. And…’ DeBryn taps one finger, teeth ghosting over his lip, clearly weighing something up in his mind, ‘if you don’t mind me saying so, Morse, it does rather put a spring back in one’s step to be mistaken for the partner of a truly singular and _extremely_ dashing detective-sergeant such as yourself.’ 

Honestly, Morse doesn’t know what to say to…to _any_ of that really, to such compliments given with such considerable care, like a secret, hitherto-undiscovered Rosalind Calloway record that was released especially for him and left on his desk wrapped carefully in ribbon along with a small box of chocolates. After a lifetime of forced assumptions – of Gwen’s bullying and petty complaints; the shock of Susan’s letter and the scorn of her mother; the various women he’s met, from false hopes to flattering, bored housewives, lipstick on his collar… He doesn’t want to describe it as flocking, even in his head, but can’t say he’s ever had any trouble in that area – if anything, he’s had far too _much_ trouble. _A gentleman_, Joan had called him once upon a time, in a strange flat in Leamington Spa, her scorn hiding deeper hurts and he hadn’t known how to respond; had only been able to hope that – and wonder if, sometimes too often – whatever he has, whatever he is, is _enough,_ even if it apparently wasn’t enough for Susan.

But to be told all of_ that_ out of nowhere, so properly, and so _truthfully…_

‘But,’ Max adds, firmly now, perhaps mistaking his enraptured silence for uncertainty of a different kind, ‘I’m no fool and I think I can guess – based on your history with Nurse Hicks for one thing –’ his voice lowers ever so slightly into something stern, _protective _and Morse grimaces; most of 1966 spent admiring Monica from across the hall, accepting all her shy overtures of care and he managed to disappoint her within a month, ‘- that I am not remotely your type, so fear not, dear fellow.’ He smiles then, more kindly. ‘You’re in no danger from me.’

Morse doesn’t think he’s ever felt so humbled. It’s heart-achingly _honest,_ this self-confessed soft spot, shared with him with such politeness and absolutely no expectations or far-flung hopes of reciprocation, a tender affection that’s rooted in reality, so unlike the overwrought eagerness of other past admirers. Being cared for, and about, in a manner that differs from Thursday’s longstanding mentorship; from Dorotha Frazil’s teasing tongue and willing ear. It’s being liked, being accepted and being enough – even if he can’t _be_ a certain way, even if his heart can’t be a certain type of willing – he can still be _himself_, entire.

Utterly moved, he can only shrug. ‘I’ve never been in any danger with you, Max.’ He smiles at the doctor, something in the other man’s expression relieved as he glances down at his tumbler, which he seems to be holding onto as an anchor, an object of focus, more than anything else.

‘Well,’ he adjusts his glasses, waits; when he receives nothing more than an expectant silence, he presses on. ‘I suppose I’m… hoping this won’t make things awkward, the next time I’m inevitably called in to patch you up when you decide to go running off after a deranged criminal or two?’

Morse shakes his head at the slight accusation under the surface; he’s given the doctor more than enough cause to give it. Then he places his own brandy aside and rises from the sofa, wandering over to DeBryn; aware of the weight of the doctor’s questioning gaze on him, he kneels down in front of him and takes his hand, places it right on his neck, his pulse.

‘Feel that,’ he encourages, pressing in with his own palm, encouraging. ‘Feel it.’

DeBryn blinks, but does as he’s told, his hand already forming the customary two fingers against his pulse. Morse can’t help but rather enjoy it, in the ensuing silence that follows: the thrum of his heartbeat rippling up to his neck, the casual contact and capability of the doctor’s hands on his skin, one of the most vulnerable parts of his body sheltered by the palm of someone he absolutely knows he can trust.

‘I sometimes think,’ he adds, raising his eyes to curious, cautious ones, although the doctor’s hand is steady, ‘that it wouldn’t be beating at all, if it weren’t for you.’

‘Don’t be so bloody ridiculous, Morse,’ DeBryn chides, albeit gently. ‘I only ever did a patch-up job.’ He tugs, gently and Morse allows him his hand back, rocking back on his heels, not remotely caring how this might look to an outsider. As far as he’s concerned, this is one of the safest places in the world to be.

‘It’s been enough.’ If not for him, then for the child whose life DeBryn once saved from the bite of a bullet. If not for him, then for his father, right at the end. Crossing his legs to sit on the rug, he eyes him rather thoughtfully.

‘You know,’ he says, before he even realises he’s going to say it, ‘if I was… did have – those preferences,’ he treads carefully here, not wanting to cause any offence, ‘If… Inspector Thursday had been right – well. I wouldn’t mind.’

DeBryn huffs, shakes his head, a more indulgent sort of smile teasing his mouth. ‘Morse, my dear fellow, this is hardly necessary; you really don’t have to attempt to spare my feelings.’

Morse shakes his head right back. ‘I’m not. Good man. Good _doctor,’_ he gestures up at him. ‘Incredibly intelligent, likes poetry.’ He says that one with a particular appreciation that he refuses to shake off, gesturing to the books on the shelves and he’s not even done yet, rather enjoying the startled expression on DeBryn’s face, gliding smoothly over his attempts to interrupt, to make some kind of protest. ‘Kind; truly kind. Incredibly clever. Cutting wit,’ he adds with a smile. ‘Anybody would be lucky to have you. I’m just remarkably flattered that Thursday thought that could be me.’

He can’t help but feel a flash of regret, just for a moment, that that person – that man –_ isn’t_ him. That he can’t reciprocate whatever it is that DeBryn might feel for him. And yet, maybe it’s better, this way. His long list of lovers – his truly disastrous history – speaks for itself, despite his efforts to the contrary and he’s truly glad that the common sense of his favourite Home Office pathologist can be kept completely separate from it.

And besides, a deep affection isn’t, after all, the same as a passionate proclamation of love.

‘Well,’ DeBryn looks stricken, although his eyes are very soft. ‘I – thankyou, Morse. Thankyou,’ he says it again, as though in lieu of all the other things that perhaps he might want to say but can’t find the words for. ‘Although,’ he adds, with a greater kind of strength, raising his eyebrows as if struck by some thought, ‘Given your necrophobic tendencies, it’s probably for the best.’

He smiles – _no hard feelings?_ – and Morse laughs back – _no, none, none at all_ – rather enjoying this game. ‘Probably. Opposites attract, I believe that’s the saying?’

‘The pathologist who works with dead bodies and the detective who faints at the sight of them. Or swoons,’ DeBryn teases, softly and Morse chuffs. ‘Tell me – was it the copious blood on my gloves that made your heart beat faster, or was it my enormous bone-saw? Oh –’

He throws a hand over his mouth, horrified, all humour immediately falling away; Morse blinks at the truly illustrious timing before raising a deliberately-salacious eyebrow.

_‘Doctor…’_ he teases gently; DeBryn shakes his head, looking positively stricken.

‘I’m terribly sorry, Morse, I didn’t mean –’

‘No, no.’ Morse crosses a hand over one knee, rests his chin there, smiling impudently. ‘I’m sure it’s a perfectly adequate bone-saw, Doctor –’

‘Oh, for heavens’ sake, Morse!’ DeBryn covers his eyes, but his shoulders are already shaking with laughter; soft, trickling chortles that always make Morse think of a steady, bountiful river and he’s quick to follow, both of them like a pair of schoolboys cackling over a stolen book of erotica. (In their case, one most likely pinched from the Bodleian Library in a covert undercover operation, with poetry on every other page to accompany the graphic images, but the point still stands). It’s completely and utterly childish and juvenile, Morse knows that much, but it also feels too good to waste.

After moment or so, their shared laughter peters away and the two of them gather himselves, DeBryn removing his glasses to wipe both his eyes and the lens. Following a relaxed moment of humour, something else seems to have gripped the doctor’s face; some thought or feeling that’s turned his expression grave, suddenly preoccupied on some other plain. 

‘Max?’ Morse prompts softly, worried again; with a glance his way, DeBryn silently replaces his glasses, murmuring an apology, as though Morse has caught him in some kind of secretive act.

‘Another drink?’ he asks, with something close to determination, indicating their almost-empty tumblers. ‘One for the road? And how about some of those chocolates?’

Morse nods; gets to his feet and offers DeBryn a hand – a hand which is accepted with a faint, almost not-there smile as he pulls him out of the chair and up on his feet - and watches him fidget, glancing with distraction down at the decanter. 

‘Alright?’ he asks again, stooping to pick up the tumblers, wondering what’s prompted this sudden change in mood; the doctor is chewing his lip, pupils shifting around in his sockets, audible even behind his glasses, something rippling beneath the surface of his expression.

_‘Rolling little queer,’_ the words tumble out of nowhere as he raises his head to look up at Morse. ‘That’s what Jago and his gang called me, when they thought I was unconscious. _That queer little doctor will bring Morse straight to us.’_

It’s said with a deep resignation, gaze looking somewhere past Morse’s shoulder; words that have clearly been rattling around his head for days and Morse is barely aware of moving; just vaguely acknowledges the clunk of the brandy tumblers as he puts them back down on the nearest surface and then, after only a split second of hesitation, wrapping his arms around DeBryn. DeBryn doesn’t push him away, doesn’t protest – doesn’t even make a sarcastic comment – just sighs, sounding very, very tired and simply, silently wraps his own arms around Morse’s shoulders, surrendering entirely.

‘It’s alright,’ Morse assures, in a low, controlled voice, quietly fuming over his head. ‘It’s alright, now. It’s all alright. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.’

‘It’s not your fault,’ DeBryn murmurs, but his voice sounds like a damn that’s already damp and dangerously close to breaking, this last thing he wasn’t able to tell anyone, that he must have felt he had no choice but to keep to himself. The possibility of another, completely different kind of threat hanging over his head that whole night, an additional kind of fear – had he not been required by Jago’s gang to serve as an incentive to tease Morse out.

_‘Soft hands came good in the end, didn’t they?’ McGyffin snarled, dragged by three police-officers to a car. Morse and Thursday stood side-by-side, watching the arrests, grim-faced. ‘Right ammunition shows the rough side of a man, comes out all piss and vinegar. That little doctor, on the other hand…’ he sneered, ‘Hell of a football, if nothing else.’ _

_He was bundled into the car; Morse felt his arms drop, his feet moving him towards the vehicle almost of their own accord and he caught the door before it closed, stuck his head inside._

_‘Maybe if your little gang-members didn’t feel the need to kick everything in sight and leave muddy-bootprints everywhere, including on the side of police-cars, you might have got away with it,’ he’d snapped and shut the door in McGyffin’s face, turned around as the car sped away to meet the unblinking gaze of Thursday. _

‘You’re safe,’ he assures, tightening his arms around DeBryn. ‘You’re safe now and nothing like this will _ever_ happen to you again. Not on my watch,’ he promises and draws back to look at the doctor, only vaguely acknowledges the fact that they’ve gone from observing notes over dead bodies at crime-scenes to embracing each other in the middle of the doctor’s lounge. ‘You’re brilliant, and you’re brave and you’ve done incredibly well to carry on after what you’ve been through.’

DeBryn sighs, allowing Morse to keep him upright after filling in the final piece of the puzzle; letting go of the last demon of this whole, sorry mess. ‘I’ve never been entirely used to seeing the funny side of it all,’ he confesses; Morse nods, understanding at once – the flashbacks, the triggers that cause them. And then, more quietly: ‘You really _are_ an incredibly decent man, Morse.’

Shaking his head, Morse releases him, stepping back to give him space. ‘I rather think that title belongs to you, long before I came along.’ And then he adds, with perfect truthfulness, ‘I hope we spend years laughing about it.’

DeBryn smiles back at that. _‘My kind and foolish comrade,’_ he says it softly, so softly, looking altogether drained and yet at the same time, suddenly rather happy. ‘Warrants the circumstances enormously. Shall we open another bottle?’

‘Why not.’ Morse picks up the tumblers again, follows him to the kitchen; they spend a moment or two debating over the wine-rack before picking up the Cotes-du-Rhone, which Morse uncorks while Max gets out some fresh glasses.

‘You know, Morse,’ DeBryn notes as they make a toast, all the heaviness seeming to have fallen from their shoulders like a cloak. ‘All things considered – and I don’t mean this with any impropriety – I do believe that you could just carry on calling me Max.’

Morse doesn’t even need to think about it. ‘Max it is,’ he smiles – he’s actually been rather enjoying the way the doctor’s name sounds on his tongue, not said with panic down an empty phone-line, but with a stoutness that signifies his reality. He’s always rather liked the name full-stop, anyway; it’s impressive, and durable, and _determined_ – rather like the man himself.

‘Excellent,’ DeBryn – Max – returns, raises his glass. ‘Cheers.’

*

After that, they’re noticeably closer.

They always have been, in their way, of course they have, but there are some things in life that just happen to forge bonds, or make them even stronger, or so Constance Morse told her young son once upon a time. From fainting on a morgue floor to picking up a pair of broken glasses years later – well. Some things just happen and just _are._

People comment on it, every now and again – Strange, for a start, muttering under his breath to Thursday when he’s watching Morse and DeBryn banter and quibble over a clue, Morse crouched down opposite him, never quite looking at the corpse, but always at the pathologist, his lighthouse eyes attentive, focused, even friendly. Thursday just rumbles, firm and fair at Strange’s half-complaint of familiarity between them – ‘Know we go to the pub and all, but I’d never call the Doc by his first name, Sir, it’d just be _weird’_ – that Sergeant Morse and Doctor DeBryn are good friends after all, and it’s never a bad thing to have a good man on your side now, is it Sarge?

Strange might raise his eyebrows and fold his arms and they watch as Morse smiles slightly at the doctor, or rolls his eyes, or even exclaims, in a strangely carrying way that would seem out-of-character if he did it with anyone else, DeBryn’s first name in an almost-whine of _‘Max!’_ when the doctor is deliberately less than forthcoming.

Frankly, it’s just good to see that Morse has a mate he can rely on; since Trewlove left; and since the strain that the necessities of rank and living together put on Morse and Strange’s own friendship; and since Thursday’s done things that he’s still making up for – well. It’s good to see there’s at least one person out there who hasn’t disappointed Morse, or had to say goodbye, or just left him behind. Good to see someone pull him out of the marvel that’s his own head, make him smile, keep him grounded, keep him focused. Morse, after all, is a man who isn’t all that used to getting what he wants and a friend is the least he deserves.

(Although, Morse _does_ get one wish granted: he and Max _do_ spend years laughing about it.

In the end, they get twenty-three).

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DeBryn quotes Housman poem, 'The laws of God, the laws of Man' (XII in Housman's Last Poems); 'Oh see how thick the goldcup flowers' (V in 'A Shropshire Lad') and 'I lay me down and slumber' (XIII in 'More Poems.')
> 
> Section 175 - or Paragraph 175 - was part of the German Criminal Code, a law that forbade homosexuality which the Nazis then brutally expanded upon during the 1930s.
> 
> Rather embarrassingly, upon further research (namely, sitting down and watching Morse) I promptly discovered that according to Morse canon, Max's niece would actually be in a relationship at this point and therefore older than I originally believed her to be here - however, I don't believe her exact age is ever truly established.

**Author's Note:**

> DeBryn quotes from A.E. Housman's 'A Shropshire Lad XLI' and 'Soldier from The Wars Returning.' Both he and Morse quote Walt Whitman's 'Song of the Open Road.'
> 
> I should stress, for those wondering; this won't develop into a Morse/DeBryn piece - however, it is a fic about two men who care for each other deeply and will continue to do so for many years to come.


End file.
